the purloined parure 13

 

Chapter 13

 

The only thing which disturbed Alexander’s evening was a telephone call from Ida.

“You’ll never guess what,” said Ida.

“Tell me so I don’t have to display my ignorance,” said Alexander.

“The old woman left a treasure hunt,” said Ida.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I went up to look at her bedroom before I left, with Gladys, and you know that piece of skirting board which looked as if it should come out?”

“Yes?”

“Well, it was the start,” said Ida. “Let me tell you all about it....”

 

oOoOo

 

“C’mon, Fred,” said Alexander. “I’ve arranged a family meeting, and I can take you straight there; well, actually, Campbell had a word with your man, so you can stop off at my pad to shower and change, and Campbell will give him your dirties.”

“Decent of you,” muttered Freddy. “What shall I do with the magazines?”

“Keep them, or leave them for the constables as you choose,” said Alexander.

“I’ll appreciate home cooking the more for this brief sojourn at the mercy of the law,” said Freddy.

“Police canteen fare isn’t worth writing home about,” agreed Alexander. “I heard a theory once that if you feed the men sufficient but nasty food it keeps them mean and keen, but I’ve yet to see that work. Bachelor cops living in the police-house survive on cigarettes and chocolate, except Sergeant Claud Teal, who is a walking advertisement for Wrigley’s spearmint gum.”

“And does that make a difference?”

“Well, he’s moderately brilliant, if a little bit conventional,” said Alexander.  “I don’t smoke, either, but I dislike the habit of gum chewing as well.” . I’m going to take up chewing on the mouthpiece of an empty pipe and say ‘Elementary,’ a lot, but for my health I’ll eschew the cocaine, and for the health of others, I’ll eschew playing the violin.”

“Oh, are you bad?”

“I love music but when I pick up instruments I promptly become a deformed creature with seven thumbs. People would pay to not hear me play; I could make a packet charging to let people leave. What you might call ‘robbery with violins...’” he winked.

“That,” said Freddy, “Was one of the worst puns I have ever heard.”

“Now, singing, I am told I am good at,” said Alexander. “So I shall inflict Gilbert and Sullivan on you all the way to your father’s house. And as you’re being sensible, I shan’t re-write Ko-Ko’s list song to cover your family.”

“You are not the way I picture a copper,” said Freddy.

“We’re actually all individuals; but in tricky situations, we have rules for how to interact with people. I just choose to let my instincts tell me when to abandon the official way of speaking.”

He launched into ‘A Policeman’s lot is not a happy one,’ and actually had Freddy joining in.

“It’s not funny, really, though, is it?” said Freddy. “You like this little thief who took the parure.”

“And I was the first person to nick him as well,” said Alexander. “He took a liking to a clock which was actually a unique piece by Fabergé.”

“Good taste, anyway,” said Freddy. “I wouldn’t have hated Marty so much if it hadn’t been me he always stole from, and got me in trouble at school. I ain’t academic, or even especially clever; my poor mother, I was a big baby and a slow birth, and Papa lets me know how I spoilt her figure. He goes to prostitutes, and occasionally takes to visiting Mother’s bed and taunting her about her imperfections. She was getting a bit of revenge for that, you know.”

“You’re a sad, sad family, you know,” said Alexander. “I hope spending time with my family will help you to help your mother.” He thought, then added, “And brothers.”

“If neither of them wants to put my head on the block for killing Marty,” said Freddy. “I can’t see it though; we fight, but I can’t see either Thomas or Eric planning to make me a scapegoat.”

“I’m not making any conjecture yet, but I have some idea,” said Alexander.

 

 

 

oOoOo

 

A little over an hour later, Alexander escorted Freddy back into his father’s house. He had utilised the time whilst Freddy was showering and dressing to peruse the reports Mary had shoved into his hand. He had found their contents very revealing.

There was an outcry of babble. Freddy’s cousins pressed forward eagerly.

“What did they do to you, Fred?  Hit you with rubber hoses?” asked Charley.

“Or give you cold enemas?” suggested Joseph.

“Hold you under water?” said Charley.

“Or bend you over a hurdle and pump water into your belly until you feel like you’re going to explode?” was Joseph’s offering.

“You are revolting brats,” said Freddy. “I was locked in a cell which smelled like Thomas after a bender with nothing to read and the food explains why coppers have no sense of humour, because it’s what they get fed in the police canteen.”

“Hey!” said Thomas.

“Last time you came in from a bender you’d shit and pissed yourself and thrown up down yourself,” said Freddy. “Hadn’t he, Eric?”

“He always does,” said Eric. “Our brother, the loathesome object. Maybe that’s where he was in those hours he’s missing, in your cell.”

“Please, Mr. Eric, we do have our standards,” said Alexander.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” demanded Thomas.

“It means if you’d been picked up for D&D, you’d go into the cells of a local nick, not to Scotland Yard,” said Alexander. “We don’t run in petty theft, either; it has to be serious larceny. Mind, we do investigate fraud and the like.”

Thomas flushed.

“I only covered for Papa, I never did anything wrong,” he said.

“Then why do you feel ashamed enough to drink?” asked Alexander.

“Damn you!” growled Thomas.

“You leave him alone, and me! The navy never proved anything against either of us,” said Alec, furiously. “What are you here for yet again? Pickle said you have news.”

“I do,” said Alexander. “As we speak, and acting with Mr. Pickle’s reluctant agreement on your behalf, a team is exhuming your mother’s body.”

“You what? How dare  you?” cried Alec.

“I dare because a combination of the testimony of the servants and physical evidence says she was poisoned,” said Alexander, grimly.

“The servants never liked any of us; they’re taking up a suggestion you made, just to get us into trouble,” said Daphne. “That class are so suggestible.”

“People like Edie Boggins, daughter of a navvie and an ABC coffee shop waitress?” said Alexander, innocently. He had been reading the reports Mary had produced for him from the legwork of his men. Checking for deed polls of name change had paid off.

Daphne, née Edie Boggins, glared at him over her exquisite tea cup held in exquisitely manicured hands and Alexander could imagine those long red talons raking him.

“Never heard of her; I’m sure she has never worked for us,” said Arthur Beauchamp. “Sounds like low company. We have our standards.”

“And like your brother, her involvement in rolling a client and strangling him to death with a stocking was never proven,” said Alexander.

“She’s nothing to do with us, my brother told you,” said Alec.

“You’d be surprised,” said Alexander. “But the servants gave us evidence which was not suggested at all; like the one who claimed one of the gentlemen was performing witchcraft.”

“Oh, now, what utter rot! Please don’t say you believed that!” cried Freddy, in scorn.

“The girl involved saw what she believed to be witchcraft; she described vials, flasks, a cauldron and cabalistic symbols,” said Alexander.

“That’s nonsense,” said Arthur, crossly.

“But it wasn’t nonsense,” said Alexander. “An ignorant girl saw test-tubes, flasks, a crucible, and chemical symbols on a board, and in her own mind she interpreted it. Ignorance and a failure to recognise what she was seeing does not mean she did not see them.”

“Well, that’s what you think she saw; it takes some imagination,” grumbled Arthur.

“Not at all,” said Alexander. “She refused to show us, because she was frightened. When I investigated the box room, with a witness, of course, I found a blackboard with partially wiped chemical symbols, a crucible, bunsen burner, and two almost empty carboys of acetic acid and hydrogen peroxide. I have in my pocked the copy of a crime report of a hair salon having been broken into, in  August. A few days later, a plumber’s shop was broken into, and some lengths of lead piping were stolen.”

“Hair dressing supplies? What’s poisonous there?” asked Daphne.

“Hydrogen peroxide to start off with,” said Alexander. “But it’s what they were combined with. Hydrogen peroxide and Acetic acid, when boiled with lead, make something called lead acetate, also known as sugar of lead. It’s a slow poison, usually, but acute poisoning can happen if it is concentrated.”

“It sounds preposterous,” said Alec.  “A leap from someone messing about with hair dressing supplies, a break in at a plumber’s and thence to poison? It’s more likely that one of the girls was trying to do her own hair-dying or making a permanent or whatever girls do. You can’t know it was this poison. Partly wiped chemical symbols can mean anything; it’s all gibberish, anyway. I don’t see how you can have got anything from that.”

“I had a very good education at Winchester and Oxford, as it happens,” said Alexander. “You keep assuming that a policeman is pig-ignorant idiot, and I assure you, that’s not true. And moreover, the blackboard, along with the crucible, bunsen burner, carboys, and the makeshift table they all stood on are with the lab boys, who will also be dusting for prints. I doubt our chemist or chemists were so careful that they did not leave dabs somewhere.”

“Do you mean the box room at the top of the stairs?” said Joseph. “Gosh, I had no idea what that chemistry stuff was doing there. I did touch some of it, in curiosity. We were playing hide and seek one wet weekend.”

Alexander regarded him, thoughtfully.

“Were there any boiling tubes or flasks, or cages with rats in, or a board with pins in?” he asked.

“I don’t think so, no,” said Joseph.

“So, your finger prints won’t be on any of those things which are dug out of the midden[1],” said Alexander.

“Cages with rats in? A board with pins in? What nonsense is this?” demanded Alec.

“Experimental subjects for the poison, I assume,” said Alec. “Though why vivisection was considered, I do not know. It shows a suggestion of some very nasty traits. The same traits as might be seen in anyone who tortured poor Marty. Someone so sick and depraved that he or she is outside of society.” He was looking at Freddy when he said this.

“What’s vivisection?” asked Daphne.

“It’s when a dissection, or cutting up of an animal... or human, I suppose... takes place whilst the victim is still alive,” said Alexander.

“Oh!” said Daphne. “But they’re only rats, you said?”

Alexander gave her a look of disgust.

“I don’t have to listen to these veiled accusations any longer,” said Freddy. “I’m going out; don’t wait up.”

He stormed out.

“I still say there’s nothing to link these stupid experiments to poisoning my mother,” said Alec.

“Oh! That was the last bottle of medicine she had, which the doctor kept,” said Alexander. “It had sugar of lead in it, which had precipitated out, so that instead of dying by inches with a heap of symptoms which could be attributed to old age, she had a massive seizure.”

“He signed the death certificate,” said Alec.

“Because the nurse was too overwhelmed to pass on her suspicions, at the time,” said Alexander. “And to pass on that your mother herself said that one of her grandsons was trying to murder her.”

“She was old and had odd ideas,” snapped Alec.

“Oh, I think her ideas were pretty sharp, despite the effect of lead poisoning on the brain. She only started getting fuddled in the last week or so. She was clear-minded enough to have a table made with a secret drawer to hide the parure.”

Charley gasped.

“That little card table in the green salon!”he cried.

“Apparently,” said Alexander.

“That bloody old woman!” cried Charley. “Sly as a fox! She hinted all sorts of things, under floor boards, secret panels, papier-maché plasterwork, in her mattress... and it was out in plain view!”

“She was no fool, certainly,” said Alexander. “I suspect she hoped it would be found by her cleverest and most amiable grandson.”

“I never had the chance,” said Joseph.

“Oh, you weren’t expected to,” said Alexander. “Cleverest and most amiable; that was Marty.”

“Marty was stupid,” said Charley.

“Now, that’s where you’re wrong,” said Alexander. “He may not have done very well at school, but he was a sharp fellow. He made a couple of simple errors and did time, but he never made the same mistake twice. The mistake he made was perhaps in letting someone in his own family know that he was going to break in, and search at leisure.  The searching he had done by the time he was caught was methodical and professional. He looked in small places too, in case of clues. As it happened, he missed the bill of sale of the table with its singular drawer, which was in the old woman’s jewellery box.  The man who found it missed that too, but found the parure by sheer blind luck. But Gertrude Beauchamp was a woman who loved her fun, and she left a treasure trail.”

He got out the notes he had made from his telephone call with Ida.

“What is this?” asked Alec, sharply.

“It’s really very simple,” said Alexander. “Your mother left a treasure trail for anyone who could follow it. The first clue was the obvious piece of replaced skirting board, and behind that was a small roll of paper. Which said, ‘look where night soil has to hide, two feet long, eight inches wide.’  This was a short length of floor board. When taken up, there was a similar note, ‘Atop the tester, you will find: another clue, if you aren’t blind.”  On top of her bed tester was a note, ‘You’ll find something for certain, just look in the curtain.’ Pinned to the curtain was the missive, ‘You’re getting quite hot, but check closer the pot.’  This referred to the spill-pot on top of the fireplace, which had one short spill which was the message, ‘In the cupboard drawer, further on for sure.’ Here the note had an earring through the paper, which said, ‘Where is my home? Not much further to roam.’ In the home of an earring, the jewellery box, was a scrap of paper reading, ‘If you read anything you might discover, you will find my parure from my Zanzibar lover.’  And there, too, in the jewellery box was the bill for making a table with a secret drawer.”

“Good God!” said Alec. “She really was childish!”

“Child-like,” said Alexander. “She had a lot of fun thinking up and hiding clues, I suspect, which distracted her from the pain of her final months, mostly brought on by the insidious poison in her system. It’s not my fault that all of you were too stupid to find it.”

“Don’t call us stupid!” flared Charley. “You can’t expect sophisticated young men about the town to even think of such infantile gibberish!”

“My good lady took a great deal of delight in following the trail, so someone was happy,” said Alexander. “I like to think that the old lady is aware that someone has the wit and is observant enough to find her treasure trail, and the fun of it was sufficient for Ida without any parure at the end of it.”

“I bet she won’t want you to give it back to some little nobody thief,” said Daphne, spitefully.

“Oh, Ida thinks it’s hideous, too,” said Alexander. “And as we’re both wealthy, the thing means nothing too us. But I thought you’d like to know that someone was clever enough for the old woman.”

The attitude was distinctly icy.

 

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[1] Although it became compulsory to have a bin in 1875, middens were still often used to just throw out things like old bottles. Living as I do in a suburban development of the later years of the 19^th century I was absolutely fascinated, when we came to dig out that part of the garden to make a car port, I uncovered a treasure trove of past rubbish, including an intact blue bottle marked ‘poison.’ So people did continue just chucking stuff out.