The Ring Read online

  ‘Kettledrums, Teddy.’ Micah turned to Grand. As a foreigner, he might need translation. ‘That means she had a fine pair of …’

  ‘Yes.’ Grand smiled. ‘I do know. So, she was a good looker, was she, this woman?’

  ‘He didn’t see her face. She was wearing a veil. But if you ask me, he was too taken up with her—’

  ‘Yes, Micah, thank you.’ Teddy took back the initiative. ‘Of course, with that old fool, who knows how long he had had the note? He said she had just given it to him, but it could have been days. He’s as mad as a March hare and drunk most of the time.’

  Batchelor asked the question which was hanging in the air. ‘And have you released the money?’

  ‘Alas,’ Micah said. ‘We can’t. I know that sounds as though we don’t want to, but believe me, we do. We want to have Emilia back as much as Selwyn …’

  ‘More, probably,’ muttered Teddy.

  ‘Tush,’ said his brother, flapping a hand at him. ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Never liked him.’

  ‘No, perhaps not. But she did, and that’s the main thing. Where was I?’

  ‘Wanting to have Emilia back,’ Grand supplied.

  ‘Yes. But we can’t release the money. It is tied up tight. The trust matures on her thirty-fifth birthday or on her death. And that’s it. It is an endowment, you see. It doesn’t exist as such, by which I mean there is no pot of money, as the writer of this seems to think. We don’t have it in a sock under the mattress. The money left by our cousin was used to buy an insurance policy which will mature on the thirty-first of August 1888 and not a moment sooner. Except, as we have said, on the occasion of her death.’

  ‘The letter-writer certainly has a very simplistic way of looking at things,’ Grand pointed out. Money, making it and moving it about was what his family had done for generations and to him, the endowment was the obvious way of leaving money to a loved one. But he could see that people who were not in that world could quite literally believe in the sock under the mattress.

  ‘He seems to be a very simple soul all around,’ Teddy said. ‘Look at the writing. The spelling.’

  ‘We have,’ Batchelor said. ‘In the other notes we have seen, it is the same; the letters are cut out of the Telegraph but even so, the misspellings are there. But look here … and here …’ He picked up the note and pointed to a couple of words, ‘This “simple soul” can spell “believe” and also gets the punctuation right in “she’s”. We think the writer of these notes is as educated as we are, gentlemen, he’s just trying to look simple.’

  Grand pressed his lips together in thought. The next thing he said would cause offence, he just knew it. ‘It could be a she, of course,’ he said, quietly.

  Teddy and Micah took offence. ‘Do you mean,’ Micah said in a voice made high and clipped by tension, ‘that you believe it to be from Emilia?’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ Grand said. ‘But it should be something to consider, don’t you think?’

  ‘No,’ Teddy said. ‘No, I don’t think it is worthy of even a second’s thought.’

  ‘We have some upsetting news,’ Batchelor said, gently. ‘We have just heard from Miss Moriarty that a dead woman fished out of the Thames is Emilia’s maid, Molly Edwards.’

  The two tea-blenders were struck dumb, then Micah recovered. ‘Are you suggesting,’ he said, and his tone left the enquiry agents in no doubt that he was furiously angry, ‘are you suggesting that Emilia could be responsible for all this?’

  ‘It has to be considered …’ Grand began.

  ‘No, no it does not,’ Micah thundered. ‘Emilia is an angel, the loveliest girl you could wish to meet. She doesn’t have a dishonest or cruel bone in her body.’

  ‘That’s what we’ve heard, but—’

  ‘But nothing.’ Teddy got up and slapped his hat onto his head. ‘Look elsewhere, sirs. It is nothing to do with Emilia. Some evil person has her in captivity, or worse. That’s where you should be looking, Mr Grand, Mr Batchelor. Among the worst that London has to offer.’

  Micah took up the tale. ‘Scour the rookeries, Mr Grand. Look among the lowest in the land. That’s where you will find our Emilia.’

  ‘Alive or dead,’ Teddy said, with a catch in his voice.

  With tears in their eyes, the old men stumbled from the room and, pausing only to tussle briefly with Mrs Rackstraw who was polishing the door knob in the pursuance of her duties, left the house silent and wondering.

  Batchelor took up the ransom note again and looked at it closely. Grand poked the fire in a desultory way. They had a lot to consider.

  ‘If you ask me,’ Mrs Rackstraw said, poking her head around the door, ‘those two would take another look. A bit too anxious to put somebody else in the frame, in my opinion.’

  When neither man replied, she gave one of her enormous sniffs, which, though wordless, said so much and went back to her polishing – there was no way now to reclaim her very interrupted afternoon.

  After a while, Batchelor spoke. ‘Could she be right?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m seldom wrong,’ the housekeeper told him, through the door.

  ‘Is he in?’ Batchelor asked with one foot on the gangplank of the Royalist. ‘Is he out? Is he shaking it all about?’

  Constable Brandon looked down from the deck rail.

  ‘It’s all right, Lloyd,’ Grand said. ‘Remember my colleague, Mr Batchelor? He doesn’t get out much himself. We were hoping to see the inspector.’

  There was a muffled roar from the hull and a flock of seagulls heard it and took off, screaming, preferring to find a nice quiet storm somewhere out to sea.

  ‘Yes,’ Brandon grimaced. ‘He’s in.’

  Grand and Batchelor clattered onto the planking and disappeared into the hatch. The daylight barely reached here on the waterline and a lantern flickered, swaying gently to and fro as the Abode of Bliss groaned and swung at its moorings. The great man himself looked up at them over a pair of rimless spectacles, the ones he wore in court to make him look more intellectual.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he swept the glasses off and threw them down on his table. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’

  ‘We know who the dead woman was.’ Grand got straight to the point. ‘Mine, I mean; not yours.’

  ‘Really?’ Bliss raised an eyebrow. ‘And how do you know that?’

  Batchelor produced a newspaper from his pocket. ‘The Eastbourne Intelligencer,’ he said, throwing it down on Bliss’s table, ‘if that isn’t a contradiction in terms.’

  Bliss put his glasses back on and picked it up. ‘The Wessex Truss Company?’ He felt he had to ask.

  ‘Next page,’ Batchelor explained.

  ‘Ah.’ Bliss found it and ferreted among the papers on the Canterbury. ‘Snap,’ he said, passing a newspaper of his own across the desk.

  ‘What’s that?’ Grand asked.

  ‘That,’ Batchelor sighed, ‘is the Illustrated Police News. The last I looked it was not written by policemen nor did it carry much in the way of news. All we can agree on is that it is illustrated.’

  ‘Never mind about all that,’ Bliss said. ‘I had that likeness placed in a number of newspapers in the hope that someone would recognize the deceased.’ He frowned at Grand. ‘Odd that it should be the self-same person who found her in the first place.’

  ‘Not guilty, Inspector,’ the American said, rearranging a discarded oilskin in order to find a seat. ‘The woman you want is Miss Moriarty.’

  ‘Moriarty?’ Bliss repeated. ‘What a ludicrous name. Should I know her?’

  ‘I doubt it.’ Batchelor perched on the corner of the table. ‘Eastbourne born and bred, apparently.’

  ‘Good for her,’ Bliss nodded. ‘What’s the link?’

  Grand took a deep breath then let it go with a hiss. ‘How much do you want to know?’

  Bliss narrowed his eyes at him and leaned forward. ‘Mr Grand,’ he said, heavily. ‘I am a rather senior policeman in the service of the Queen, God
bless her. If that still leaves you in doubt, the answer to your question is; everything.’

  Grand took a breath again and started, enumerating points on his fingers and keeping an eye on Batchelor, in case he left anything out. ‘We were approached by one Selwyn Byng, a timber importer, whose wife had been kidnapped …’

  ‘And he didn’t come to the police because …?’ Bliss was not going to make this easy.

  ‘Because the people who had kidnapped his wife said he wasn’t to; if he did, his wife would be killed.’

  Bliss thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘Go on.’

  ‘We weren’t at all convinced, to be absolutely honest, that any such crime had taken place. In fact, we were almost certain that his wife had left of her own free will.’

  Batchelor held up a finger and interrupted. ‘She had been staying with her aunt in Eastbourne …’

  ‘Miss Moriarty?’ Bliss hazarded and the two enquiry agents nodded their approval of his detective skills.

  ‘… because,’ Grand resumed, ‘she didn’t want to be tempted into … what’s that word you use here when you want to be polite?’

  ‘Congress,’ Batchelor supplied.

  ‘That’s the one. I don’t think of it that way, as you might expect. Tempted into congress with her husband, because she was in mourning for her father, who had been squashed by a load of tea.’

  Bliss leaned back. He had told less unlikely tales to any one of the numerous little Blisses many a time. He was enjoying himself, in a strange sort of way. These two were good company, you had to give them that.

  ‘At least,’ Batchelor continued, ‘that was the husband’s story. But there were holes in it and Miss Moriarty, the aunt, told us about the maid.’

  ‘Any maid in particular?’ Bliss asked, wryly.

  ‘Mrs Byng’s maid. She had travelled with her up to London but Mr Byng hadn’t mentioned her at all. So we more or less told him to go away and stop bothering us.’

  ‘That was very … altruistic of you,’ Bliss remarked. ‘Most gentlemen in your line of work will take on any job for the per diem and expenses.’

  Batchelor pulled a face and gestured with his thumb at Grand. ‘Private means,’ he mouthed.

  Bliss glanced across but Grand didn’t seem to have taken offence. ‘That must be nice,’ he acknowledged. ‘But if it makes you more honest, then I’m all for it. So … you told him to go away and …?’

  ‘He came back a day or so later with a finger.’

  Bliss leaned forward again. ‘It’s all beginning to take shape,’ he said. ‘This would be the finger you brought to Dr Kempster.’

  ‘It would,’ Grand agreed. ‘We wondered if it might go with your own bits and bobs, but it was too fresh.’

  Brandon, who had been eavesdropping on the deck, moved away and leaned over the side for a while.

  ‘Then I found the other body, of course,’ Grand said. ‘And as she had no hands, we can’t tell if the finger was hers.’

  ‘So, that’s easy then,’ Bliss said, standing up and reaching for his cap. ‘It’s the wife. Why didn’t you say so?’

  ‘Because it isn’t,’ Batchelor said. ‘It’s the maid. Miss Moriarty and her maid, Enid, recognized her at once. Unfortunately, they don’t know much about her, except that her name is Molly Edwards and she had been Mrs Byng’s maid since before she got married. Enid seemed quite upset by it all; I understand they had got quite friendly while Mrs Byng was visiting.’

  ‘Was it the wife’s finger, though?’ Bliss was trying not to get confused.

  ‘Byng was adamant it was. It had her ring on and he seemed very sure. But I’m not certain whether anyone could tell from such a small part, unless there is some handy scarring, or something.’ Grand was really thinking aloud.

  ‘This Byng is a timber importer, you say. I think I should go round and have a word.’

  Batchelor hopped down from the table and dislodged a teetering pile of files. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered, trying to catch them. ‘Were they in any particular order?’

  Bliss shrugged. Brandon was in charge of that kind of thing, insofar as Brandon could be in charge of anything. ‘Possibly. Now, which timber importers?’

  ‘Could we go first?’ Grand asked. ‘He’s a rather nervy gentleman and if you suddenly confront him, I can’t really predict how he will react.’

  Bliss looked thunderous. He didn’t really believe in nerves, having never been aware of having any himself. A nervy suspect was a collared suspect, in his book. ‘Well, I …’

  ‘Just give us an hour,’ Batchelor said.

  Bliss looked at the clock. ‘I’ll give you until tomorrow,’ he said. ‘First thing.’

  ‘That’s very generous,’ Grand acknowledged. ‘If we find anything else out, shall we …?’

  ‘Keep it to yourselves until tomorrow? Yes, that would be marvellous,’ Bliss agreed. Even policemen had the right to some time off and he had had his conscience pricked by his meeting with Bridie O’Hara. Mrs Bliss and all the little Blisses didn’t see half enough of him.

  ‘We’ll do that thing,’ Grand said and he and Batchelor made their way back into the open air, bidding a farewell to Brandon’s heaving back.

  THIRTEEN

  The doorkeeper at Sillitoe, Byng and Son was clear when he eventually slid open the little hatch in the wicket gate. Neither Byng, senior or junior, was available at the moment.

  ‘Do you mean not available, or not here?’ Batchelor wanted to be sure.

  ‘Mr Byng is at home,’ the doorkeeper said. ‘Mr Selwyn is also at home.’

  Grand blinked. That sounded a very subtle distinction. ‘Same place?’ he ventured.

  ‘No.’ The doorkeeper was a man of few words. ‘Mr Byng and Mr Selwyn don’t live in the same establishment. I don’t rightly know where Mr Selwyn lives. Somewhere posh, I expect.’ That was the only hint that perhaps Mr Selwyn was not the man’s favourite of his employers.

  ‘Where does Mr Byng live?’

  ‘Ooh, more than my job’s worth to tell you that,’ the doorkeeper said.

  ‘Let me be sure of this,’ Grand said. ‘You don’t know where Mr Selwyn lives. You do know where Mr Byng lives, but you won’t tell us.’

  The doorkeeper looked upwards, thinking for a moment, then nodded. ‘On the button,’ he said and slammed the hatch. ‘Bloody foreigners,’ he muttered, spitting into a sawdust-strewn corner. Coming over here, asking personal questions. He’d have to make sure Mr Byng and Mr Selwyn knew that he had sent them packing; not that there would be a tip, not from those two. Tight as a gnat’s arse, the both of them. He settled down in his chair again and slowly, the dust of the timber works settled too, coating him in a fine layer as soft as sin.

  ‘Oh, I almost forgot.’ It was late and the lamps of Alsatia flickered out one by one. Matthew Grand was rummaging in his inside jacket pocket. He tore open the envelope and read the contents.

  ‘What’s that?’ James Batchelor was scanning the evening papers for news of more body parts.

  ‘Well,’ Grand leaned back in his chair, the letter in one hand. ‘I thought it was the half past two post. Some tight cuss too mean to pay for a stamp …’

  ‘Whereas?’ Batchelor looked up.

  ‘Whereas it’s a letter from our friend Richard Knowes.’

  ‘Really?’ Batchelor stopped reading. To be honest, he hadn’t expected to hear anything more from that quarter. ‘Don’t tell me, it’s composed of letters cut out from the Telegraph.’

  ‘So young, so cynical,’ Grand chuckled. ‘No, it’s in a fair round hand.’

  ‘Knowes himself, then.’ Batchelor craned his neck to see it. ‘Not Board School handwriting, that’s for sure. What does it say?’

  ‘Says he’s drawn a blank,’ Grand told him. ‘He’s talked to people who in their turn have talked to people. Nobody in his line of work is much interested in the Byngs – too far down wealth’s ladder, apparently. Now, if we’re interested in a little scam involving Lionel de Rothschild or o
ne of the Barings, he can shed a little light; for the usual consideration, of course.’

  ‘Which is?’ Batchelor asked; it would be an education to know what information at that level went for these days. When he was working in Fleet Street he could find out most of what he needed to know by passing over a couple of shillings. Somehow, he didn’t think that Richard Knowes dealt in small change.

  Grand turned the page over. ‘He doesn’t say, but I guess, bearing in mind his calling, it will involve a large percentage and somebody’s kneecaps.’

  Batchelor sighed. ‘Matthew,’ he said after a while, ‘we’re getting nowhere fast. Time for a recap.’ The correct word, as James Batchelor knew perfectly well, was recapitulation, but the man’s journalistic training died hard and as far as Matthew Grand was concerned, ‘correct’ was only a serving suggestion when it came to the Queen’s English. They adjusted their chairs and faced the wall. Mr and Mrs Gladstone stared back at them from their sepia photographs, jaws of granite and eyes of steel. Since he was the famous politician and she was merely loaded and fond of ice-cold baths, he sat in the chair and she stood at his shoulder, restraining him, if the rumours were true, from hurtling out of Number Ten in search of fallen women. Across the fireplace, in which the embers were glowing towards an ashy end, Mr Disraeli stood by himself, reptilian, oily. Mrs Disraeli was notable by her absence. The two greatest politicians of their age loathed each other with a passion and their ideologies were poles apart. The only thing they had in common were the enormous ink moustaches that Grand and Batchelor had added to their portraits, Mrs Gladstone looking particularly fetching in hers. Whatever the provocation, clients were never shown into this room.

  ‘You first.’ Grand lit a cigar and threw another one to his colleague.

  ‘Selwyn Byng,’ Batchelor said, holding the brandy decanter up to the gas light, ‘comes to us distraught at the disappearance of his wife.’

  ‘Emilia,’ Grand chimed in, ‘who has no money in her own right but who will inherit a tidy sum on her thirty-fifth birthday.’