The Testimony of the Hanged Man (Lizzie Martin 5) (9 page)

‘Would you believe it?’ asked Bessie, her glee mixed with awe. ‘We found ’im. We found the old gent as was murdered.’

‘Hush, Bessie!’ I said quickly. ‘Don’t speak of that here. You don’t know who might overhear us.’

My warning came in the nick of time. Other people were approaching. I heard women’s voices and turned.

Coming down the path towards us were two women, one still a fairly young woman, probably about my age, and dressed very fashionably. The other was slightly older and dressed very plainly, a lady’s maid, perhaps. I had only a fleeting impression of a pale face. She walked behind the fashionable one. Both were looking towards us in a manner I could only describe as unfriendly.

‘Good day,’ I said cheerfully.

This did not cause them to soften their expressions. The elegant lady asked, in an icy tone, ‘You are visiting my uncle’s grave?’

I sent up a quick silent prayer of thanks that the parish clerk had not accompanied us and couldn’t speak of my interest. He might do so later, of course, if he encountered the former Miss Sheldon, as this must surely be, now Mrs Lamont. She was what is called a handsome woman, with strong regular features and fine dark eyes. A few years earlier, with the bloom of youth on her, she might even have been called beautiful. Ben had told me that he believed Mills had had an eye for a good-looking woman. Was that, I wondered, what had kept Mills watching at the window, that dismal night in the rain, when this woman, if it were the one, had entered the room where the old man dozed by the fire? He had not raised a hand to rap on the windowpane – and perhaps save a life – because he had been transfixed by the sight of a lovely girl?

I spoke up with as much confidence as I could muster. ‘We are only walking round and viewing all the headstones out of interest. I am a visitor to Putney and one can learn so much about a place from the headstones in a graveyard.’ Again, all true. ‘I see,’ I went on, ‘that your late uncle was a very charitable gentleman. He must be much missed in the community.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Mrs Lamont with no thawing of her voice. ‘I trust you will find other things in Putney to take your interest.’

That was a clear dismissal. There was nothing more to do but smile and bow and make my departure, Bessie following behind.

‘My!’ said Bessie, when we were outside the burial ground and in the street. ‘That was a close one.’

‘It was, indeed, Bessie,’ I agreed with feeling. ‘Thank goodness the clerk had to hurry off to his meal, and didn’t come with us.’

‘I suppose that was her, then, the one who . . .’ Bessie remembered she must not mention the word ‘murder’. ‘The one Mr Mills saw.’

‘It might well be. Come along, we ought not to linger. I am sure Mrs Lamont is watching us. Let us take an interest in some of the other buildings in Putney.’

We made our way back to the High Street, where we strolled along, pausing occasionally to look in a shop window or gaze up at the frontage.

‘That other one,’ Bessie said suddenly, ‘the woman who was walking with her. I didn’t much like the look of her.’

I had to admit I’d paid very little attention to the woman I had assumed a lady’s maid.

‘Mrs Lamont,’ went on Bessie, ‘wanted to know what interest you had in her uncle’s grave, and that might be a natural question. But that other one, my! If looks could kill, why the pair of us, you and I, missis, would be laid out flat on the grass alongside the dead!’

Our stroll had brought us to an old inn with an arched carriage entrance leading into a cobbled courtyard.

‘There’s Victor!’ I exclaimed. ‘Mr Slater must be inside. Come along, Bessie.’

We ventured into a narrow wood-panelled entry. A stout female descended on us and asked if she might be of assistance.

I explained to the landlady, as I supposed this to be, that I was seeking somewhere a lady might obtain some luncheon. Bessie and I were shown, with some ceremony, into a very small room, called by the landlady ‘the Sun’. It was otherwise uninhabited and appeared to have been disused for some time, if the amount of dust was anything to go by. We squeezed ourselves on to narrow benches in a window bay, where there was a round table. The landlady informed us that the establishment’s veal pie was famous all over Putney and beyond, diners travelling across the bridge from Fulham to sample it. Would we not have the veal pie with some boiled potatoes and a dish of tea? I said we would.

‘Now, Bessie,’ I said when the landlady had gone to see to our order. ‘Just slip out and take a glance into the taproom and see if you can see Mr Slater. You don’t have to hail him or do anything obvious, just let him catch sight of you and he will know we are here.’

Bessie did as bid and returned to tell me that Wally was settled comfortably with several companions, ale tankard in hand, and talking nineteen to the dozen. ‘And they say women gossip!’ said Bessie scornfully. She was sure he had seen her in the doorway, as his face had crinkled up fit to frighten the cat.

Bessie had encountered the landlady again and, to explain why she was not waiting in the Sun, requested if there was some place to which a lady might retire ‘for necessary purposes’. The landlady had told her there was a privy in the yard but hardly fit for a lady’s use. If two respectable persons like us were in need, let her know and we could go upstairs to the landlady’s private living area where there was an earth closet, of which the landlady was extremely proud.

Either the veal pie was as excellent as promised or our efforts that morning had made us very hungry, but we made short work of the food and the tea. Having paid we ventured upstairs to the earth closet. The landlady sent up a servant girl with us to guide us to the very spot. She took us to what appeared a large clothes cupboard, but when she had flung open the doors we beheld the contraption itself. The girl insisted on demonstrating exactly how we must crank the handle on the side of the hopper above the wooden seat to release the ashes within down into the bucket below it. She eventually left us but not after informing us, in a hushed voice, that ‘the Queen, God bless her, has got one just like it.’

‘Really!’ exploded Bessie when the girl had gone. ‘As if neither of us had ever seen one before!’

After our adventures with the earth closet we made our way back down to the stable yard where we found Wally Slater waiting beside Victor in the shafts of the growler.

‘If you want to take a look at Fox House,’ said Wally, ‘I’ve found out where it is. It’s all right, Mrs Ross, no need to worry. No one has suspected anything. I just got talking to the locals and I found out a deal of interesting facts, as you might like to know. But I can’t tell you here.’

‘We could drive slowly past, Mr Slater, but we must not stop or appear interested!’ I warned him. ‘Bessie and I have already encountered the lady who lives there.’

‘And she was very suspicious, if you ask me,’ added Bessie.

‘I suppose,’ Wally told her, ‘that whether we was to ask you or not, we gets your opinion, free and gratis!’

Bessie and I clambered into the cab and Wally on to his perch. We heard him whistle to Victor and we set off.

Bessie was by now so excited by the whole adventure that she fairly fizzed alongside me and could hardly keep still, despite my twice begging her to stop fidgeting. We had left the main area of habitation and began passing by scattered houses. Wally turned on to another road, leading across some open heath scattered with clumps of bushes and occasional trees. We then lurched and bumped across some rough terrain before arriving on another stretch of modest highway. Wally had slowed Victor to an amble and we proceeded at this gentle pace until the little trapdoor above our heads flew open and Wally shouted down, ‘Up ahead, on your left, Mrs Ross!’

‘Remember, don’t stop!’ I shouted back in warning, but the trap had already snapped shut.

The house came into view to our left. It was much as Ben had described it – following Mills’s description. It was long, low and very old. It would be easy to believe it had once been an inn. I longed to put my head out of the window so that I could see the very top of the roof, to establish whether the running fox weathervane was still in place. But I dared not show so much interest in case we had been observed from within.

‘Lonely old spot, ain’t it, missis?’ observed Bessie. ‘You could get up to any amount of mischief out here and no one see you.’

‘We must be following some medieval track leading to London from the south, a drovers’ way,’ I told her. A quick glance to my right took in a small clump of trees facing the house across the road. That was where Mills had tethered his horse on the night of the storm, sixteen years earlier. I felt a tingling as if I, too, were in the midst of an electric storm. It was just as Mills had told Ben, quite unchanged in every detail. The condemned man’s testimony was to be trusted. I certainly did not doubt he’d witnessed a murder that dreadful day.

Just then I heard another loud whistle above my head, and a rap on the trapdoor, although it didn’t open. Victor broke into a trot. Something was happening and Wally was sending us a warning.

At that moment we overtook a pedestrian, walking towards the house. We saw him briefly as we bowled past, a tall, dark-haired, moustachioed man in a country suit of tweed and a soft hat. He was striding out, walking stick in hand. We were aware of his sharp gaze fixed on us, and the look of suspicion and surprise on his face, before Victor carried us past and onward. Had we, I wondered, encountered Mr Lamont, on his way back home? If so, he might mention our cab to his wife – and she, in turn, mention the strangers who were so very interested in her uncle’s gravestone.

‘It can’t be helped, Bessie,’ I said to her. ‘But I think we have stirred things up.’

‘If you don’t stir up the soup-pot, you don’t find out what’s at the bottom of it!’ said Bessie in a surprisingly wise observation. ‘Mrs Simms used to say that. Her what is cook-housekeeper to Mrs Parry.’

‘Oh, I remember Mrs Simms!’ I said. I remembered everything about my time as companion to my Aunt Parry. It had been full of surprises, not least in bringing me together with Ben again for the first time since childhood.

‘I won’t ever forget her,’ said Bessie with feeling. ‘She had me working from dawn till night in that kitchen. I never got a chance to sit down.’

The growler had slowed. We reached an area of open heath and stopped. The growler rocked as Wally’s substantial frame clambered from his perch. He appeared at the door.

‘It’s dry underfoot, ladies. I got a rug I can set down so you can make yourselves comfortable. Then,’ said Wally cheerfully, ‘we can have what they call a council of war.’

He handed me down ceremoniously from the cab, Bessie scrambling down unaided behind me and pausing to reach in and retrieve the basket of apples. Wally fetched an old but spotlessly clean travelling rug from the box and spread it out for us. We settled ourselves and Bessie handed out apples. Victor was tearing at the rough grass a few feet away. Bessie put one apple back in the basket.

‘That’s for the horse,’ she said, and Wally beamed his terrifying smile.

Anyone passing by would have taken the three of us for a slightly unusual but perfectly innocuous picnic party. But no one did pass by. I was pleased about that because in Putney people seemed to have a disconcerting way of popping up when least expected.

‘Well, that’s the house, then,’ said Bessie. ‘I couldn’t see if there was a weathervane on the roof.’

‘It’s up there, right enough,’ said Wally. ‘Running fox, brush held out straight behind him, like you said, Mrs Ross.’

Bessie gave a little cry of triumph and clapped her hands. It was all I could do not to follow her example. We had indeed found Fox House, down to the last detail. ‘So what did you learn in the taproom, Mr Slater?’ I asked him.

Wally gave a comfortable sigh and settled in for a long narrative. ‘They all know one another’s business around here,’ he began. ‘That suits our purpose very well, you might say.’

‘What did
they
say?’ interrupted Bessie, who also suspected we were in for a long address.

Wally turned a reproachful eye upon her. ‘I took my time and a lot of trouble to learn all this,’ he told her. ‘So you just pipe down and listen.’

Bessie bridled and opened her mouth but I signalled her to silence.

‘As I was saying,’ began the cabman again. ‘If you want to know anything about any of the big houses around here, you’ve only got to ask in that taproom – casual-like, of course. Fox House is well known because it’s one of the oldest houses. Everyone complains how many new houses have been built over the last few years but I told them, if you lived across the river, in London proper, you’d be pleased to get out of the crowds and the dirt and the smells. It’s like being in the country here. Fox House belonged to Mr Sheldon and he had made a mint of money in the coffee trade. Locals called him the “coffee king”. In later years, of course, he’d retired from the active side of his business and being very comfortably placed – from the money point of view – he was seeing out his days very nicely, with an orphaned niece to look after him. Miss Amelia Sheldon, she was, and now she’s Mrs Lamont.’

‘We’ve met her,’ burst out Bessie, then reddened and pressed her lips together, casting me a guilty look.

‘Old Mr Sheldon,’ continued Wally, ‘was a . . .’ Wally scowled and creased his brow in effort. ‘He was a
phil - threpist.
’

‘Philanthropist?’ I suggested.

‘That’s it!’ Wally nodded. ‘He gave away money to good causes; and he had plenty of money so good causes knew where to go and ask. He was over eighty and a bit chesty, but he took good care of himself and people were surprised to hear he’d died. He did that very sudden, although, as they all said in the taproom, at his age and with the weather being so changeable that year, it ought not to have been a surprise.’

Wally paused to crunch his apple, more for dramatic effect, I suspected, than because he felt peckish.

‘Well, now,’ he began, after a mighty swallow, ‘after the old gent died, it was all change at Fox House. The charitable causes soon learned to stop calling at that door for help. Miss Amelia, she inherited the lot, house, fortune, everything. But she didn’t inherit his generous ways! First off, she dismissed all the servants including the old fellow as had been Mr Sheldon’s valet. He was as old as his master, so that wasn’t so unexpected, and a young woman don’t need a valet. But Mr Sheldon, in his will, had left his valet an annuity, since they had been together, master and man, for over forty years. Mrs Sheldon, she tried to get the lawyers to say that clause of the will had not to stand. But the lawyers said, yes, it did, because Mr Sheldon had been of sound mind when he caused that bequest to be written in. So the old valet got his annuity and lived on very nicely on it for another ten years. But it wasn’t a very nice thing to do, so they reckon in the taproom, to try and stop him getting it. She’d have let him go to the workhouse, if she’d had her way. As it was, she didn’t get her way that time, and he lived to spend his bit of a pension in that very taproom where we were sitting talking about it all.’