the purloined parure 12

 

Chapter 12

 

Ida ran up to the top of the house, clattering up the uncarpeted back stairs in a way which was almost coltish. Alexander hid a smile. He would refrain from teasing his beloved about that; after all, she was catching up on the last of her girlhood, stripped from her by the evil plans of Gloria and her paramour. The box rooms were at either end of the house, and at the far end, the tank room was between and took up part of them. Ida did not think that it would be as easy to use either of those rooms as an impromptu laboratory, because there was less room. Though of course, there was also water available in case of fire.

On the other hand, she did not think that anyone reckless enough to brew poisons in a box room would think of the safety aspects.

Moreover, one of them had been converted into a lavatory for the female servants; Ida peeped into each side to check. The other side held general lumber. She moved back to the actual boxrooms near the stairs, sensible really for boxes to be left there, and not needing to be carried further.

One of the boxrooms had been cleared of boxes; one might assume this was the one utilised by the servants, and so when they went, so did their belongings. . All the top floor had something of a slope to the ceiling, which came down to about five feet above the floor on the outer side; the box rooms had skylights whereas the bedrooms had dormer windows, hidden at the front by stonework balustrades, which came high enough to hide them from the ground floor. There were two bedrooms at the front and two at the back, ten feet deep and seven feet wide, the smallest ground plan considered suitable for a bedroom. The boxrooms, six feet by ten, were too small for human habitation, and were therefore used to store the trunks of servants and visitors, and, indeed, any steamer trunk of anyone likely to travel.

As one had been cleared, it was likely the servants’ boxes; and Ida went into the other.

Some trunks and boxes were stored there, some very old indeed. Boards on top of them had converted them into a laboratory bench, and though there were no vials or flasks, there was a bunsen-burner, hooked up to the gas mantle rather precariously, and a small crucible.

“Now where would anyone get equipment like that?” wondered Ida.

“Probably stolen from a grammar school; that would be easier than from a supplier of chemical supplies,” said Alexander. “Look, nearly empty carboys of acetic acid and hydrogen peroxide, of the sort you would find in a hair stylist’s shop.”

“I find it hard to imagine you in a hair stylist’s shop,” said Ida.

“I once nicked a murderous hair stylist,” said Alexander. “Nasty little beast.”

“Oh, that puts my mind at rest; I prefer you unstyled,” said Ida. “I may be wrong, but I get the feeling that a man who spends a lot of time on his hair is too vain to be anything but selfish.”

“And what about women who spend a lot of time on their hair?”

“Oh, I know the manifold faults of my own sex,” said Ida. “I expect a large proportion of women to be vain. Though the world is changing, and women may have more interests these days than looking good to please their menfolk.”

“You don’t want me to exert myself to please my womenfolk?”

“You have hair short enough to put in order with half a dozen strokes of the comb. I don’t think a Marcel Wave would suit you at all, and if you start wearing makeup, other than on stage for the Lashbrook Players, I will become worried.”

Alexander laughed.

“I wonder if hair stylists will prove a short-lived phenomenon? They have arisen out of women across the social strata who have enough leisure and spare cash to have their hair tended from time to time, now we have more social equality and it isn’t just the upper class women who have dressers and hair dressers. But now that women are wearing their hair short, I wonder if they will become superfluous?”

“I don’t know; your mother cut and styled my hair, and she did it as beautifully as any fancy hair stylist,” said Ida.

“She is very good at it,” said Alexander. “She used to cut my hair as a little boy and if I wriggled she threatened to put a pudding bowl over my head to trim anything which stuck out, like a slum child.”

“And now?”

“I wander into the first barber I see when Superintendent Barratt complains that my hair is too long,” laughed Alexander.  “Which is usually at the point it is irritating me anyway, but I let him have his victory.”

“Well, hair anecdotes despite, what are we going to do about this?”

“Fortunately, I have my folding Kodak on me to photograph in situ. I’ll call the lab boys in to have it gone over for dabs, and to be bagged up and taken back to the lab,” said Alexander. “Have you covered everyone?”

“Yes; it remains only to go down and tell them that I will pay them for their time and tell them that they are not suitable.”

“I’ll go find a bobby to call in the lab boys, and then go on to talk to the butler, whose daughter lives out at Hampstead. Take Ethel back to the hotel, and sit tight.  We should be fine tonight; I’ll be releasing Freddy in the morning.”

 

oOoOo

 

 

The ageing butler was pottering happily in the garden, pruning and tidying up.

“Mr. Ambersmith?” Alexander showed the man his warrant card. “I am Inspector Armitage of Scotland Yard; there are one or two irregularities surrounding the death of your late mistress which need to be clarified.”

“Ohmygawd,” the usual plummy accents of a high class butler slipped briefly. “Come into my retreat, if you please,” he said.

Alexander followed the man into a garden shed which, whilst encompassing the appurtenances of a common potting shed, also extended back to include a comfortable  sofa, a small table and chair, a kettle and a couple of mugs and a small kerosene stove.

“Tea?” asked the old man. A tortoise stove in the corner gave out enough heat to make the place cosy.

“I don’t mind if I do,” said Alexander, letting the man fix tea, and get his nerves in order. Behind a curtain he glimpsed an oildrum converted into a makeshift toilet. The sofa was long enough for the old man to sleep on. “I take it your sojourn out here is your own choice, and not the demand of your daughter?”

“Alice is a good girl, but I don’t get on with her husband,” said Ambersmith. “He sneers at my long years of service to Mrs. Beauchamp, and talks of ‘servitude’ and ‘slave mentality’ and goes on about ‘equality’ and ‘let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution.’ He’s all squeak and no trousers, though; he couldn’t run an orgy in a brothel, never mind a communist revolution, but he doesn’t like it when I tell him so. Or that he’s a property owner courtesy of my wages having bought this little place for my Alice when she got wed.”

“Did your children grow up in Orme Court?”

“Yes, my Lucy was housekeeper, and our children grew up the other side of the door to Messers George, Alec, and Arthur. And glad I am of it; my boy, Paul, he’s a solicitor, and doing very well, and however shiftless Brian may seem nowadays –my Alice’s man – he’s worked hard enough, and worked his way up on the railways. It wasn’t his fault he was injured, and he was robbed of sufficient compensation, and it made him understandably bad tempered. I’m sorry for him, but we rub each other up the wrong way.  The trouble with the mistress’s children is that they took after their father and she never made enough of a push to make them do more than expect the world to give them what they want. Poor Brian sees that and hates them.”

“Not, I hope, enough to use his connections to you to poison the old lady and murder one of her grandsons to get his hands on the parure to redistribute its wealth?” asked Alexander, sinking happily into one end of a sofa not too soft but definitely soft enough.

“Most certainly not, sir, but I could make a guess at who might,” said Ambersmith. “And no, I won’t say.  I’ll only say that Mr. Marty is harmless if you don’t leave the silver out, Mr. Alec’s boys are stupid, and Mr. Arthur’s boys take after their mother. You think that Mrs. Beauchamp was murdered?”

“I’ve got some good proof and an exhumation will confirm it,” said Alexander. “And I just wondered if you had noticed anything.”

“Not that she said to me,” sighed Ambersmith. “But it didn’t surprise me. Which of the lads was murdered?”

“Marty,” said Alexander.

Ambersmith shook his head.

“A real shame,” he said. “Hadn’t an honest bone in his body, but he was a pleasant fellow, always ready with a joke or quip. And he didn’t steal from his grandmother, not ever. If he got the parure, well, she always said it was up for grabs.”

“Does your son in law know about it?”

“He knows the story, though I’m not sure he believes it,” said Ambersmith. “I’ve seen the thing; hideous it is.”

“Yes,” agreed Alexander. “Well, you tell Brian the joke of the age; it fell into the hands of an ordinary sneak thief who has no relation to the family, who plans to adopt a crippled lad because his own son died of infantile paralysis, because the parure will pay for that. And the bigger joke is, the thing should be safe for the year and a day because Scotland Yard has to guard it while he’s inside for another job.”

“One shouldn’t laugh, but...” said Ambersmith.

“Indeed,” said Alexander. “I’ll have a word with the party involved; knowing that a good man was cheated of compensation would probably have him sharing, but he won’t be out for at least a couple of years.”

“No, don’t,” said Ambersmith.  “Brian takes in appliances to mend, and does it very well, but if he had a big lump sum, he’d drink it and it wouldn’t be good for him.”

“You know him best,” said Alexander. “Thank you for your co-operation.”

“You’re welcome; it’s nice to have a visitor, even with sad news,” said Ambersmith. “Poor Marty. You’ll catch them, of course; they aren’t as clever as they think, and they’ll trip themselves up on their own cleverness.”

“I will, and I fancy they will,” said Alexander. “I’ll drop in on a more sociable call, if I may, next time I’m in the vicinity.”

“That would be very nice,” said Ambersmith. “I’m experimenting with baking, using my stove.”

“My fiancée mentioned that when she was a girl-guide they used old biscuit tins as ovens, dug pits and got a fire going, let it burn to a good red bottom and put bread and cake in biscuit tins on top of the embers, and buried them. Could you use your ash pan?”

Ambersmith chortled.

“What a good idea!” he said.

 

oOoOo

 

 

 

Alexander went to see Freddy. The man was sat in the cell, disconsolately, and scowled at him.  Alexander tossed him some clean socks and underwear he had bought him.

“Not been murdered in your bed, I see,” said Freddy.

“I won’t be, while you’re inside,” said Alexander. “Packet of cigarettes – smoke by the window, or I’ll get into trouble – and a packet of chocolate biscuits, and a selection of pulp magazines to while away the time.”

“Now, you look here!” said Freddy. “I didn’t kill Marty.”

“I believe you, but I also think I’m safe while you’re inside because you’re a convenient scapegoat.”

Freddy went purple.

“Are you saying that one of my brothers or cousins would kill you and blame me?”

“Yes,” said Alexander. “Which is why, when I release you tomorrow, I plan to take you home where there will be a family meeting about why I am exhuming your grandmother, and why you will storm out, meet my man, Campbell, and stay with him at all times until he passes you into the care of someone else. He’ll take you to the pub if you want, and even to the dogs, but you will stay in his sight at all times, do you understand?”

“I... but it’s preposterous!”

“I should think standing in the dock being accused of murder, torture, and so on is also preposterous, but that’s what you are being set up for,” said Alexander. “I believe you, but can you guarantee that twelve good men and true would do so, with your record of violence?”

“I... I suppose not,” muttered Freddy.  “I need help with my temper. Thanks for the stuff. I have been bored since I calmed down.” 

“I can put you in touch with doctor who is very good; I had help after the war,” said Alexander.

“I... thanks,” said Freddy.

“Has the solitude helped you think things through?” asked Alexander.

“Oddly, yes. I don’t like it, though.”

“Bear in mind that I am actually trying to help you – and your mother, at least, understands this.”

Freddy nodded.

“If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have brought things to help. What do I owe you?”

“You owe me going to this doctor and turning your life around, and living it the way your grandmother would have wanted you do to,” said Alexander, seriously. “You don’t have to be crushed by your father being a crook, and you could even help your brother... maybe.”

“It’s too late for him; he seeks his solace in the bottle.”

“It may not be too late, but he has to want to turn himself around,” said Alexander.

“Why are you helping?”

“I could have let myself go, if I hadn’t had damn good parents. I note you respect your mother.”

“She did a real job during the war.  I do respect that. But I’m not in the habit of going to her for help.”

“It’s a habit worth cultivating; and in your shoes, I’d also help her to at least separate from your father before she kills him.”

“Don’t you mean, before he kills her?”

“No. I mean that everyone has their turning point when they turn on someone who torments them, and your mother has reached hers over her defence of you.”

His eyes widened.

“I see,” he said.

“Good. I fancy she’s the one with the temper you inherited and has kept it suppressed for years,” said Alexander.

 

oOoOo

 

Campbell and Alexander took the same precautions as they had the night before. They had stopped at a chippy on the way back, and picked up some old ale at an off-licence.

“You know, squire,” said Campbell, when they were sat on the sofa eating rockeel and chips out of the paper, “I’m ’appy to go out with Gladdie, but it’s nice to ’ave a quiet blokes’ night in.”

The radio played softly in the background, and when they had eaten, and disposed of the rubbish and washed up, Alexander produced a pack of cards.

Each man knew games the other did not, and a most convivial evening was to be had.