Death at Epsom Downs Page 14

  Taking her cue, Amelia patted Margaret’s hand. “It’s too bad ye ’ave to be privy to such terr’ble things, Margaret,” she said piously. “But ye’re to be praised fer ’oldin’ yerself above it all and stickin’ to yer standards. Ye’ll ’ave yer reward in ’eaven. The Bible says so.”

  “Thank ye, Amelia,” Margaret said with a smile, her good humor partially restored. She picked up the damp towels. “Rose is doin’ yer mistress’s room. Let’s go down to the kitchen and fix ourselves a spot of tea.”

  “Won’t Cook mind?” Amelia asked doubtfully. Discipline wasn’t overly strict at Bishop’s Keep, but the servants took their morning cup in the servant’s hall, where they didn’t distract the kitchen maids or get in Mrs. Pratt’s way.

  Margaret shook her head. “Cook likes ’er bit of gossip, same as us. We’re safe so long as Mr. Williams don’t catch us. Come on.”

  The kitchen was a large, gloomy room with damp stone walls and a stone-flagged floor, under the old part of the house. Only a little natural light was let in by the windows high up on the walls, at ground level, and gaslights burned around the room. Although it was only midmorning, the room was already quite warm, heated by the monstrous Royale range, a black iron giant that took up almost all of one wall. On the other walls were bins and shelves and cupboards that held dishes and cooking pots, and a solid deal table sat in the middle of the floor, its surface marked by years of vegetable-chopping and bleached white with many scrubbings.

  The kettle was already boiling on the back of the range when Amelia and Margaret came into the kitchen. Margaret put tea in a china pot, while Mrs. Redditch, the cook, dropped a lid on the copper kettle on the stove and joined Amelia at the table. She was a large, jolly-looking woman whose good humor seemed to extend to everyone but the kitchen maid, who was sulkily washing up the breakfast dishes in the scullery.

  Margaret was pouring tea into three thick china mugs when Mr. Bowchard, the gardener, came in with a bucket of fresh-dug carrots. With a nod to Amelia, who had been introduced to him at lunch the day before, he pulled out a chair and sat down.

  “Well, Bowchard,” Mrs. Redditch said genially, as Margaret fetched a fourth mug, “ye sart’n’ly look glum enough, and it’s not noon yet.” She chuckled. “Is the missus makin’ life ’ard fer ye agin?” Mrs. Bowchard, as Margaret had told Amelia the day before, was the laundress at Regal Lodge, as well as several other neighboring establishments, and was known to be a harridan.

  Mr. Bowchard, who had the gray, bowed-down look of a henpecked husband, blew on his tea to cool it. “I just ’ad a word with the postman,” he said in a conspiratorial tone. “Seems as there wuz a killin’ in Newmarket last night.”

  “That’s nothin’ new.” Margaret poured more hot water into the teapot and put on the lid. “Somebody’s allus gettin’ hisself killed in Newmarket.”

  “It’s the rowdies, ye know,” Mrs. Redditch said to Amelia. “They come down from London fer the boxin’ matches and cockfights and ’orseracin’. The constables do their best, but they get drunk in the taverns and knock each other over the ’ead.”

  “Far as I’m concerned,” Margaret said darkly, “it’s good riddance t’ bad rubbish. It’s gettin’ so Christian folk can’t walk down the ’Igh Street without ’earin’ some ruffian’s crude language. Why, even Pastor Johnson—”

  “Wud’n’t no ruffian,” Mr. Bowchard put in, with the air of a man who knows something important and is having a difficult time containing his knowledge. He put his mug down and leaned forward. “Wuz Badger,” he said in a low voice.

  “Alfred Day?” Mrs. Redditch asked, surprised. “ ’E’s dead?”

  “ ’E’s dead,” Mr. Bowchard said definitively. He leaned back in his chair. “Somebody shot ’im. Last night.”

  Margaret let out her breath in a long whoosh. Mrs. Redditch sat staring.

  “Badger the bookmaker?” Amelia asked in great surprise, remembering how she had met him at the Derby, and how anxious Lawrence had been to drop his bet into Badger’s satchel.

  “Right,” Margaret said grimly. “ ’E ’appens to be Mrs. L.’s bookmaker.” She narrowed her eyes. “When did ’e get hisself killed, Mr. Bowchard?”

  The gardener gave her a meaningful look. “After nine and afore ten. Leastwise, that’s wot the postman said. ’E got it from ’is brother Tom, the constable.”

  “After nine and afore ten?” Mrs. Redditch cried. “But that’s when Mrs. L. was supposed to meet—” Her hand went to her mouth and her voice trailed off.

  “Eggsac’ly, Mrs. Redditch,” Mr. Bowchard said grimly. He put down his mug. “My thoughts eggsac’ly.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  In the Doctor’s Office

  In 1835, Henry Goddard caught and convicted a murderer. Goddard was one of the last and most famous of those Bow Street Runners who were the antecedents of the London detective force. Goddard had noticed that one of the bullets in the victim’s body had a curious blemish. With this bullet in his pocket, he set out on his hunt for the murderer. In the home of one suspect he found a bullet mold with a flaw, a slight gouge. The ridge on the murder bullet exactly corresponded to this gouge. Confronted with this evidence, the owner of the mold confessed the crime.

  The Century of the Detective

  Jurgen Thorwald

  Following Jack Murray’s directions, Charles located Dr. Stubbing’s consulting room next door to the chemist’s shop a few paces off the High Street. Several people were hunched forlornly in chairs in the small room at the front, but when Charles handed his card to the stern-faced woman at the desk by the door, she rose and led him down a hallway. She rapped on a closed door, went inside, and almost immediately reopened the door, motioning to Charles.

  The doctor was leaning back in his wooden chair, his feet propped on his desk, reading a newspaper. For a long moment, he didn’t stir, even when Charles cleared his throat. Finally, he put the newspaper down and Charles saw a paunchy man with an unruly mane of white hair and bright blue eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses. He regarded Charles with a look of undisguised hostility, not bothering to take his feet off the desk or offer his visitor a chair.

  “Chief Constable Watson was here earlier,” the doctor said, without preamble or introduction. His voice was raspy, with a slight Scottish burr.

  “Was he?” Charles said pleasantly. “Then you know why I’ve come.” Unbidden, he pulled a chair around to the front of the desk and sat down, taking off his hat.

  Dr. Stubbing narrowed his eyes. “Watson said that the Jockey Club had some sort of interest in Alfred Day’s murder. He said they’d brought some member of the Establishment in to take over the investigation.” The doctor’s tone clearly implied that he approved neither of the Jockey Club nor of its intervention in what was obviously a matter for the local constabulary.

  Briefly, Charles wondered what else the chief constable might have said. He put his hat on the corner of the desk, wishing that he had a better idea of the relationship between the Club and the people of the town. Horseracing might make Newmarket more prosperous, but criminals and crime inevitably accompanied that sort of prosperity. And even if crime were not an issue, there was the constant traffic, the influx of strangers, the noise and the dirt. He could not blame the local citizens if they felt an active hostility toward the Club at the same time that they enjoyed the economic benefits it brought them.

  “I wonder,” Charles said without inflection, “whether you’ve finished the autopsy.”

  Dr. Stubbing folded his paper and tossed it on the floor. “I’ve finished near as need be,” he said, clasping his hands over his belly. He pursed pink lips. “Alfred Day died of a bullet wound in the chest.”

  “So I presumed, from the entrance wound I observed last night,” Charles said gravely. “I also noticed, when the body was placed on a stretcher to be brought here, that there was no exit wound. The bullet must have remained in the body. Did you extract it?”

  The doctor swung his feet of
f the desk, opened a drawer, and took out a cigar case. “Didn’t bother,” he said flatly. “Somebody shot the poor bastard at close range, and that’s what I’ll tell the coroner’s inquest.” He took a cigar out of the case, closed it, and replaced it in the drawer without offering the case to Charles. “Assuming there is an inquest,” he added. “Or do the gentlemen of the Jockey Club mean to subvert the judicial inquiry as well as the police inquiry?”

  Charles did not answer the question. “I’m afraid, Dr. Stubbing, that I must trouble you to extract the bullet. It might be useful in identifying the gun that fired it.”

  Dr. Stubbing’s bushy white eyebrows shot up. “The bullet identify the gun?” He grunted skeptically. “You’re joking.”

  Charles gave an inaudible sigh. “I’m quite serious, sir. A full decade ago, in Lyons, Professor Lacassagne was able to match the marks on the bullet to the rifling of a particular gun barrel. Last year, in Germany, Dr. Paul Jesserich matched a bullet taken from the victim’s body with a test bullet fired by a revolver belonging to one of the suspects. The testimony of both of these scientists resulted in guilty verdicts.”

  “Mumbo jumbo,” Dr. Stubbing muttered, lighting his cigar. “Maybe a foreign jury can be taken in by such pseudo-scientific poppycock, but not one of our English juries. They have better sense.” He eyed Charles. “There’s never been such a case in England, I’ll wager.”

  “There was one, sir,” Charles said, “about sixty years ago. But it did not go to the jury. The comparison of the bullet with the mold that formed it persuaded the murderer to plead guilty.”

  The doctor harrumphed. “Well, you’re not going to get a Newmarket jury to swallow such an argument. Unless the Club puts its own men into the jury box, of course. And its own judge on the bench.” He pulled on his cigar, his voice rising bitterly. “And don’t try to tell me that won’t happen, sir. I’ve seen what money and influence have already bought in this town, and all in the name of sport.” He spit the word out. “Who’s to say the Club can’t buy justice, as well?”

  Charles made no reply, because nothing he said would change the other’s mind. And at some deeper level, there was a part of him that feared that the doctor might be right, and that he himself had been inveigled by Owen North to participate in something he did not fully understand.

  “You see? You yourself can say nothing in the Club’s defense!” The doctor slammed his fist on the desk. “The drunkenness, the rioting, the beatings, the assaults on our women—that’s what horseracing has brought to this town! And worse, too.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, his face twisted. “Most of the poor people waiting out there can’t afford a doctor, or medicine, or warm clothing and food for the children. They’ve been seduced into putting their last shilling on the favorite, or on the long shot, or on the dogfight. They’ll end up in the almshouse, supported by honest citizens, and all on account of that racecourse out there. Don’t talk to me about crime and criminals. The Jockey Club is the greatest criminal of all!”

  Outside, the tower clock at the east end of the High Street began to chime. Charles counted as it struck eleven times. When the last note had died away, he said quietly: “Whatever moral judgments you may make on horseracing and the Club, it is of vital importance that the fatal bullet be retrieved from the dead man’s body. It is evidence, Dr. Stubbing, and the case cannot go forward without it. I should very much dislike to report to the coroner that the autopsy was not completed because the surgeon failed to cooperate fully.” He leaned back. “Now, sir. How soon can that bullet be found?”

  The doctor regarded the gray tip of his cigar malevolently. “Depends on where it is,” he muttered, and applied another match.

  “I understand,” Charles said. “The body is still here, then?”

  “In the next room,” the doctor growled, puffing. “The mortician’s been summoned to fetch it, but he hasn’t arrived yet.”

  Charles felt some relief. At least he didn’t have to go to the mortuary in search of the body—and the bullet. He stood. “While you’re completing the autopsy, I should like to examine Mr. Day’s personal effects. His clothing, and so forth. It’s all here?”

  The doctor heaved himself out of his chair. He gestured toward a table in the corner. “Over there. Help yourself.” He walked heavily across the room and through a door, slamming it behind him so hard that the windows rattled.

  Charles saw that when Alfred Day died, he had been wearing a bowler hat, black shoes, gray jacket and trousers, white shirt, and gray waistcoat. The shirt and waistcoat gave bloody evidence of the shooting: a bullet hole in each and a large, irregular bloodstain; a peppering of black powder burns in a three-inch circle around the hole in the waistcoat. Blood had soaked into the jacket and the front of the trousers as well, suggesting that the man had lived some moments after he was shot.

  Apart from the bloodstained clothing, there seemed little else of interest. Charles found some coins, a key on a silver ring, and a penknife in the right front trouser pocket; in the right rear pocket, a few bank notes folded into a leather wallet that also contained several of Day’s calling cards; and a stub of a pencil in the jacket’s outer breast pocket, but nothing on which to write. It was only when he began to explore the waistcoat pockets that he found something of interest: a piece of delicately scented paper, folded several times and stained along one edge with the dead man’s blood.

  Charles unfolded the note carefully. It was written in a flowing, expressive hand on cream-colored paper, embossed at the top with the words Regal Lodge.

  Dear Mr. Day,

  I don’t suppose I need tell you how disturbed I am by your letter. We must meet immediately for a private discussion. I shall be in my carriage in St. Mary’s Square at nine this evening. I beg you to be prompt so that the carriage does not attract unnecessary attention.

  The note was signed with two initials, elegantly intertwined: LL.

  Charles was staring at the note, considering its implications, when the doctor reentered the room, carrying in his hand a small cardboard box. He tossed it onto the table beside the clothing.

  “The bullet,” he growled.

  “That was quick, I must say,” Charles remarked, folding the note. He took out his pocket watch. The doctor had been out of the room for no more than three minutes, clearly not sufficient time to complete the autopsy.

  “Take the bloody thing,” Dr. Stubbing snarled, “and get the devil out of here.”

  Without a word, Charles pocketed the small box, the note, and the key, left the clothing lying where he had found it, and walked out of the office. Once on the street, he headed for the livery stable. If he did not want to walk to Regal Lodge, he should have to hire a gig.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  At Regal Lodge

  Kate & Lillie

  In the first place, I shall be seen; and that is no small advantage to a girl who brings her face to market.

  Lillie Langtry, playing Kate Hardcastle

  in She Stoops to Conquer

  Oliver Goldsmith

  [After my first London appearance at Lady Sebright’s] the photographers, one and all, besought me to sit. Presently, my portraits were in every shop-window, with trying results, for they made the public so familiar with my features that wherever I went—to theatres, picture-galleries, shops—I was actually mobbed.

  The Days I Knew: The Autobiography

  of Lillie Langtry

  Lillie Langtry

  Having changed into a gray silk dress trimmed with lavender lace, Lillie Langtry, now seeming fully recovered, settled herself on the green velvet sofa in the drawing room.

  “Now, Beryl my dear,” she said with a gracious smile, “we can talk to our hearts’ content. Take out your notebook and your pen and fire away with your questions.”

  “You’re sure you won’t mind?” Kate asked tentatively. “I certainly don’t want to intrude on your privacy.”

  “Privacy!” Lillie exclaimed, with a toss of her head.
“Whatever is that? Since I attended my first salon in London some twenty years ago, I have been a public figure. I have not a moment of privacy. Not one instant.”

  Kate held her pen poised over the page. “Twenty years!” she exclaimed artlessly. “That can’t be!”

  “I recall it as though it were yesterday,” Lillie replied, and heaved an elaborate sigh. “It was at Lady Sebright’s house in Lowndes Square, in May. I was still in mourning for my brother, so I wore a plain black dress—square-necked and terribly unfashionable—made for me by Madame Nicolle, back home on Jersey. So many people were there, all crowding around, and I felt like an ingénue suddenly given a grown-up part to play. Jimmy Whistler and Millais both demanded to paint me, and Freddy Leighton wanted to do my head in marble. The great Henry Irving offered me a stage role, and of course Oscar Wilde, poor, dear Oscar, swooned around making a fool of himself—and of me, too, I’m afraid.” She gave a little laugh, delicately self-deprecating. “With no effort on my part and certainly no design, suddenly I found myself a professional beauty, my picture in all the shops and men tripping over themselves to pay court. Such a whirl it was! Enough to turn a young girl’s head. It’s a good thing I had both feet planted firmly on the ground!”

  Writing rapidly, not looking up, Kate said, “But before you came to London, what? You were married to Mr. Edward Langtry, were you not?”