The Testimony of the Hanged Man (Lizzie Martin 5) (8 page)

So, having driven the poor woman into a nervous decline, he intended to send her off to be locked up in what amounted to a private asylum, though it might call itself a ‘spa’ in the fashionable Continental way. There she would be subjected to goodness knows what by way of treatment. Jane had panicked and fled, taking the child. Canning knew the reason for it. He’d never admit it. Her actions probably, in his view, confirmed the doctor’s diagnosis of hysteria. Well, I am not a doctor, but if a man acts more like a gaoler than a husband, he ought not to expect his wife to like it. Canning was a bully, and that was the only word for it.

‘We should go back now, sir,’ said Ellen firmly, getting to her feet. ‘It will be bad enough as it is, when I go back, for they – Mrs Bell first and Mr Canning when he gets home – will want to know every mortal word we exchanged. But you needn’t worry, sir, that I will tell them what I told you. I am not afraid of them. They can send me away; but they can’t do it with a bad reference because of what I might go telling people.’ Ellen cast me quite a mischievous look. ‘I do believe, sir, that Mr Canning is a bit frightened of me!’

No, I needn’t worry about Ellen. She was more than able to look after herself.

When I arrived home that evening, I found Lizzie ready to tell me what had happened at Somerset House and her hope that the porter might have information for her on the morrow.

‘Well, there is no harm in going back there and finding out if his wife has any memories of her time in Putney of help in this case,’ I said cautiously, ‘but do please be very careful, Lizzie. Asking questions can be a dangerous business.’

Chapter Six

Elizabeth Martin Ross

‘THAT ANIMAL,’ declared Wally Slater, the cabman, with pride, ‘that is your genuine hackney vanner. That animal is bred for the purpose and is, as working horses go, a regular diamond. He’ll keep going all day without going lame or starting to wheeze or otherwise breaking down. He’s a young horse, too, you know, only a six year old. I had to pay handsome for him,’ added Wally confidentially, ‘but he’ll repay me with years of hard work, reliable as Big Ben is at telling the time.’

A smile of pride creased his battered ex-prizefighter’s features and rendered them, if possible, even more alarming.

The three of us, Wally, Bessie and myself, gazed at Victor as he waited, one hind hoof tipped, in the shafts of the four-wheeled growler, just outside our modest house. Victor in turn rolled a large brown eye at us, as if assessing what Bessie and I might weigh, without baggage. What he saw must have reassured him, for he sighed and settled down as if to doze off.

‘He looks quiet enough,’ observed Bessie. ‘He’s half asleep.’

‘He’s an excellent temperament. You’ve got to have a cab horse with a good temperament. There are those cabmen,’ continued Wally, ‘who look to buy a horse cheap. You know, some old carriage horse no longer fit to be part of a smart gent’s carriage pair. An animal like that might be more showy, but it’s not used to the work, can be difficult to handle, takes a chill easy, and don’t last more than a couple of years. I’ve seen horses like that drop dead in the shafts. No, Victor and me, God willing, will be together as long as old Nelson and me were.’

‘Speaking of youngsters, Mr Slater,’ I said. ‘Is young Joey still in your employ?’

‘That street urchin you foisted on me?’ Wally chuckled. ‘He’s come along very well. Of course, we had a few problems. F’instance, my wife won’t stand for bad language, as no more she should. So I had to tell him a few times to mind his. Trouble was explaining to him what was bad language, as he seemed to think all language was fit for anyone’s ears, females included. But we got that straight. He took to my old horse, Nelson, straight away and Nelson took to him. Why, when Nelson’s time was finally up, and he had to go to the knacker’s, young Joey was in tears, as was my wife. I had a tear in my eye, for that matter,’ added Wally. ‘Of course, you’d hardly recognise the lad if you saw him now. My wife has been feeding him up and he’s grown and filled out, though he’ll never make a prizefighter.’

Wally became business-like. ‘You want to go to Somerset House first and then out to Putney. We’d better get started.’

Victor recognised from the tone of his owner that we would shortly be off. He threw up his head and looked alert. Bessie picked up the small basket containing apples to sustain us, and we climbed into the growler.

I had been worried that the friendly porter might not be on duty. But there he was at his station and greeted me like an old acquaintance.

‘Pleased to see you again, ma’am. I knew you’d be back and I haven’t let you down! I told my wife all about it last night. She was very happy during her time in service in Putney when she was a young girl, and it got her reminiscing right off. I told her about the house with the weathervane as you described it, a running fox.’

‘And she knew the house?’ I asked eagerly.

‘Well, she remembers a house with a weathervane like that,’ the porter replied cautiously. ‘Not to say it’s the same one, of course! But it was near the Portsmouth road, as you said. It belonged to a gentleman name of Spelton or Shelton, she cannot be sure which, and she knows no more about it than that. It was not a household that was on friendly terms with the people my wife worked for. By that I mean they didn’t go visiting back and forth, so she never saw any of the people who lived there. The only thing she has in her mind is that Mr Spelton (or Shelton) was an elderly gent and something of an invalid. The reason she knows that is because the doctor used to call regular on a member of the family in her house. Quite often when he arrived he would say, as he was taking off his hat and coat, that he was coming from Mr Spelton (or Shelton). Or, when he was leaving, he would say, “I must be off to see Mr Spelton,” (or Shelton).’

‘I am extremely obliged to you, Mr – I am afraid I don’t know your name,’ I told him.

‘Hogget, madam.’

‘Then I am very obliged both to you and to Mrs Hogget. I wonder if I might trouble you to ask her one more thing. Can she remember the name of the doctor?’

‘I’ll ask her,’ he promised. ‘Let me know how you get on.’

I returned and conveyed what I’d learned to Bessie, who became thoughtful. ‘You know what, missis, you may have started a hare, that’s what. Hogget will go home and tell his wife that you’re really interested and now you want the name of the doctor! If Mrs Hogget is still friendly with anyone from her days in service out at Putney, she’ll be sure to mention it. You’ve set a rumour going, that’s what.’

Mindful that this was exactly what Ben had feared, I said firmly, ‘I am only making a general inquiry.’

‘People going to all the trouble you’re going to,’ retorted Bessie, ‘aren’t making general inquiries. They’ve got a very particular interest, that’s what. Begging your pardon for speaking out, missis,’ she added belatedly.

Well, she was probably right but what was done was done. I settled back and let Victor take us all to Putney.

I need have had no fears about locating St Mary’s church for it was just across Putney Bridge, standing by the river, and we saw its ancient square tower from the far side. We clattered over the wooden bridge, which echoed hollowly beneath us, and found ourselves in the High Street. Bessie and I descended from the growler and Wally clambered down from his perch.

‘Seeing as,’ Wally pointed up at the clock on the solid stone tower, ‘it is past twelve, Victor will be wanting his oats, to stay nothing of a rest. I suggest to you, Mrs Ross, that I take Victor somewhere suitable, that has a stable yard with a water trough, and I can see to him and to myself there.’

‘You mean to a public house,’ said Bessie.

‘Yus, Miss Sharp-as-a-razor, I do.’ Wally turned back to me. ‘Public houses is also very good places to get into conversations. You can find out a deal from a bit of chat over a pint of ale.’

‘You will be careful, Mr Slater,’ I begged.

‘Don’t you fret,’ he assured me. ‘People looking at me can see what I am; and there will be Victor outside busy chomping in his nosebag, to prove it. I ain’t the law, like your husband. I’m just a cabbie. I’ll come back here to collect you and her – ’ Wally nodded towards Bessie – ‘about half past one, how’s that?’

We watched the cab roll away.

‘Well, now, missis,’ said Bessie as we turned back towards the church. ‘What do we do now?’

‘We visit the church,’ I said, ‘as anyone new in Putney might do. That will occasion no gossip. Then, we look for a likely burial.’

The tide was out and the river low. A group of bare-legged urchins scavenged on the mudflats below the church. The exposed riverbed glistened grey or brown and, here and there, patched with a fetid green, and was strewn with all kind of debris. The swollen body of a drowned dog had been left by the retreating water as if the river gave it back to the land. Gulls wheeled overhead and the familiar odour of human refuse assailed our nostrils as we walked up the path to the doorway. Even with Mr Bazalgette’s new sewer system now in place, Father Thames was still more than full of all kinds of filth.

We hurried to the church and stopped to survey the graveyard with some dismay. At first sight it was a jumble of tightly packed, sunken graves and mossy headstones and tombs, none of which looked recent. There were no new flowers or urns. The church noticeboard told us the building itself was in use, but its burial ground appeared to have been abandoned.

‘It don’t look like they buried the old fellow here,’ said Bessie glumly, gesturing at the scene, ‘whatever that porter told you.’

‘They must have buried him somewhere,’ I insisted, quelling my own doubts. ‘We’ll just have to search. Let’s see if there is anyone in the church who can help us.’

We were about to enter the building when an elderly man appeared suddenly from within. We almost collided and he began to apologise profusely.

‘I do beg your pardon, ladies! I was hurrying home to my luncheon and didn’t expect anyone to be coming inside now. I trust you are not harmed? I am parish clerk of this church, ma’am,’ he added to me. ‘Did you want to go inside? There’s no service due, not until this evening, six o’clock, when there will be a service without any music, as it isn’t Sunday. Our organist doesn’t play except on a Sunday or at weddings and funerals.’

‘We only wanted to look at the building,’ I told him. ‘Is it very old?’

Closer to hand, parts of the church did not look so ancient, though the tower appeared to have age to it.

He was anxious to confirm my suspicions. ‘Some parts of it are indeed very old, ma’am, as is this tower above us. It was in this church, you know, that in sixteen forty-seven after Cromwell had defeated King Charles, a great debate was held to decide what should follow. But if you will go inside now you will see there was a deal of repair and alteration some thirty years ago. There was a fire then, ma’am, and much of the building destroyed.’

‘I couldn’t help but notice your churchyard,’ I went on, as he seemed disposed to chat. ‘I see it is very full and the graves appear very old. I suppose some of them must be of historical interest.’

‘It is indeed full, ma’am, and no one has been buried there in my lifetime, and I am sixty-four! They ran out of space at the end of the last century.’ Then, with an astuteness I had not expected he asked, ‘Was there a particular burial you had in mind, ma’am?’

It was time to confess. ‘There is, but it would have taken place some sixteen years ago, in eighteen fifty-two, and, from what you tell us, it cannot be here.’

‘Ah,’ said the clerk, ‘then it will be in the ground given to the church for burials by a very generous and pious gentleman by the name of the Reverend Dr Pettiwand. But after a hundred years of burials since he gifted it, that is also full, alas, and we must bury our departed loved ones elsewhere. If however the person of interest to you died in eighteen fifty-two, there is a good chance he was given one of the last plots in Pettiwand’s ground.’ He shook his head. ‘Putney has grown apace since I was a boy. Who would have thought it? What we require now is a large public cemetery such as has been set out elsewhere. What would be the name of the deceased, ma’am?’

‘It may have been Spelton or Shelton,’ I told him.

I should not have been surprised that this amiable parish clerk was as particular as the clerk in the blue coat at Somerset House. I felt I had to explain.

‘I am asking on behalf of someone who knew the area many years ago, a Mr Mills. He did not live here but used to visit often. Unfortunately he is no longer able to come himself.’ So far, so true . . . stretching a point.

The parish clerk shook his head. ‘Spelton, eh? I know of no one of that name, and I am a local man as I told you, and have been parish clerk here for a good few years. We can look in the register of burials, ma’am. But I do not have on me the keys to the cupboard where it is kept.’

Was I to face defeat? I urged, ‘Mr Mills did not remember the name of the gentleman’s house, only that it had a weathervane designed like a running fox.’

To my delight, this struck a chord with the clerk. ‘Indeed, yes, ma’am! The gentleman, Mr Mills, is quite right. Fox House, it’s called, and was formerly an inn. It must be nigh as old as this church here. But it had long ceased to be a hostelry when I was a boy. I never knew it but as a private house and belonging to Mr Sheldon most of that time. Mr Mills, if you will forgive me, has not got the name quite right and that misled me!’ He shook a triumphant forefinger at me. ‘It is not Shelton, ma’am, but
Sheldon.
’

‘That’ll be him!’ exclaimed Bessie impetuously. Then she blushed brick red, cast me an apologetic look and stared down hard at the ground.

But the parish clerk was anxious to tell me more. ‘Oh, yes, I remember old Mr Sheldon. He was a fine old gentleman and very generous. I fancy he had made a good deal of money in the coffee trade. Mr and Mrs Lamont still live there. Mrs Lamont was Miss Sheldon before she married, and old Mr Sheldon’s relative. She lived there with him.’

‘That is indeed probably the one,’ I told him.

‘Then I can tell you that you will find him in the burial ground I spoke of. I can give you directions but it will be a good twenty minutes’ walk for you ladies, and uphill.’

I assured him we were good walkers. He gave us the directions and added that if we failed to find Mr Sheldon, we should return to tell him that afternoon, but not before four. He bid us a cheery good afternoon and set off for his luncheon.

He was a reliable informant and although it was a warm walk, and uphill, we eventually found the burial ground he’d told us of. We divided it between us, Bessie beginning on the far side and I on the nearer side and working methodically towards the central pathway. The parish clerk had been correct in telling us this graveyard, too, was full. I wondered how long our search would take us. Wally would be wondering what had become of us. But then I heard a cry of triumph from Bessie and looked in that direction to see her waving energetically with one hand and indicating downward with the other. I hurried towards her and found she pointed at a headstone fashioned in gothic style.

‘Found him!’ she crowed. ‘Here’s Mr Sheldon, just like that old clerk fellow said.’

I read the inscription eagerly.

ISAIAH MATTHEW SHELDON

Born 17 April 1769 at Fulham

Departed this life 15 June 1852 at Putney

A pious and charitable gentleman remembered
with gratitude by many

Behind me, Bessie was still uttering little exclamations of triumph. I almost exclaimed aloud myself, for this was surely the old gentleman of whom Mills had spoken.