An Arrest is Made
Emma took herself down Watson Street again in the direction of the wharf. It was busy as usual, but not with the bustle and urgency of ten years ago. Only one crane was working, loading the PS Warren and its barge with goods from the shed. She slipped into the office and nodded at several of the riverboat captains she knew who doffed their caps at her, but Nathaniel Pickles wasn’t at his usual high desk behind the counter, overseeing everything that went on.
“Is Mr. Pickles not in today?” she asked Mr. Norman, his offsider.
“He was called away earlier. Mrs. Pickles called for him. Right upset she was too.”
“Henrietta?” He nodded. “Do you know what it was about?”
“She didn’t say, not in my hearing, anyway. Something to do with the father’s death I shouldn’t wonder.”
“Possibly.” But what? “Thank you.”
Emma took a direct path behind the wharf to High Street, making her way between the salt works shed and the Bridge Hotel. She had to wait a moment for a wagon and a carriage to pass before crossing to the Tearoom. She knew the door would be locked before she’d even tried it. The blinds were drawn on both the glass door and the windows.
Down the side of the building, she hurried to the front door of Janet’s house, but there was no answer to her knock. Not even the nanny and the children were at home. What was going on? The Pickles boarding house was the obvious next stop, and only two streets away. But no one there knew anything either.
“Nathaniel went off to work as usual this morning,” Charity told her. “We haven’t heard anything since.”
Emma thanked her and turned away. She was getting a very bad feeling about this. Should she go to the police station? But if Janet hadn’t been arrested, she’d be drawing police attention to her. She’d try the livery stable first. Alex, Janet’s husband, would definitely know if something was happening with his wife. Of course, it might be a different matter altogether and she was making assumptions about nothing. She could only hope.
She walked quickly back up High Street, turning left past the Town Hall into Heygarth and then right into Hare Street. She stopped and waited as a lady and gentleman trotted out of the stable premises on their smart horses, looking to be going for a pleasant ride in the country.
In the little lean-to off the stable itself she looked for Alex. Not finding him, or anyone else there, she ventured into the stable.
“Is Alex around,” she asked a lad who was backing a horse into the shafts of a chaise.
“He’s been called away.”
“I don’t suppose you know why, or where to?”
The lad pulled a note from his vest pocket and handed it to her.
“He dropped this and lit out like his p… fast like.”
Emma opened the note.
Janet’s been arrested.
The handwriting was shaky, much the way she was feeling as she stared at it. The police station it had to be then. She scrunched the note in her hand and hurried away without another word, retracing her steps back up High Street. Anyone seeing her dashing back and forth from one end of town to the other would be wondering what on earth she was about.
Standing now in front of the building on Dickson Street, Emma paused to catch her breath. Despite having been involved in several suspicious deaths some years back, she had never been inside a police station. Pushing open the door, she stepped into the public waiting room. Nathaniel and Alex were at the counter making demands of a steely-faced officer. Nathaniel seemed to be asking to see Sergeant Donovan while Alex wanted to see his wife. Henrietta was seated, a handkerchief to her face. Emma went straight to her.
“How on earth did this happen?” she asked, bending down, and putting her arms around the older woman.
Henrietta wept on her shoulder for a moment before gathering herself. Emma sat beside her, keeping an arm around Henrietta’s shoulder.
“We’d barely opened this morning and he came in, that Sergeant Donovan. Walked right into the kitchen and arrested her for murdering her grandfather. Oh, Emma,” she cried, “he put the handcuffs on her. Then he marched her down the street like some common criminal. I thought I was about to die there on the spot. She won’t even lay a hand on that son of hers, and lord knows he could do with a good smacking now and then. To think she’d kill someone, and her own grandfather…”
Emma stared unseeingly across the room. This had to be Dr. MacArthur’s call. He’d decided the blow to the head had caused the heart attack. But there was only circumstantial evidence that Janet had delivered the blow. And the lack of blood. Emma drew in a sharp breath and sat taller. Surely the police hadn’t found evidence of a clean-up? They’d have something to answer for if that were the case.
“Have they found any other evidence?” she asked.
“They found the piece of firewood when they searched the parlour this morning. It was under his chair, so the Sergeant said.”
Charity hadn’t mentioned anything about a search. Even if the Sergeant hadn’t told the woman what they’d found it would have been useful to know what the police were doing.
“And they’re sure it was the one he was hit with, are they?”
Henrietta nodded. “There are hairs and, and other matter, on it.”
Emma berated herself for not having Janey search the parlour yesterday. She’d allowed herself to be swept along by Dr. MacArthur’s story of a possible clean-up. Though what would they have done with it? Hide it? It wouldn’t have helped.
“There’s no proof that Janet used it,” she said now.
“Except that Miriam saw it in her hand.”
“We need Mr. Inglis. Perhaps he can get Janet out on bail while we try and figure out what really happened.”
“Yes, yes, of course. I wasn’t thinking. Nat?” Henrietta got to her feet. “Nat, we need Jonathan Inglis,” she said approaching him at the counter. “He said he would defend Janet. Can you go get him?”
“He said that? When did he say that?”
“Yesterday, at lunch.”
Nathaniel looked between them, flustered and bewildered.
“He did, Mr. Pickles,” Emma assured him. “He seemed quite keen to help. I could go, but it would be better if you spoke to him.”
“Right, right, yes. That’s, that’s decent of him.” He seemed reluctant to leave, as if something even worse might happen if he weren’t there.
“We’ll stay here, Nat. Please hurry,” Henrietta urged. She watched him leave the station. “He’s in shock,” she said. “He’ll be himself again by and by.”
Nathaniel was indeed looking much brighter when he returned fifteen minutes later with Jonathan Inglis. Jonathan carried a briefcase and looked every inch the confident lawyer in his dark suit, black agate buttons winking on his vest. He approached the counter and presented his card to the officer, requesting to see his client, Mrs. Janet Naughton, immediately. Minutes later a door opened, and he disappeared into the bowels of the station.
Alex and Nathaniel joined Henrietta and Emma on the chairs lined up along the back wall of the waiting room. Behind the counter, an officer cast a glance their way occasionally, but no one spoke. Alex’s face was white as he sat, hands drooped between his knees, head down. This was a situation none of them had a precedent for.
“Mr. Pickles,” Emma said addressing Nathaniel, “may I ask you some questions while we wait? The sooner we figure out what has gone on here the sooner this will be over, and Janet back home.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Apparently Henry Collins came home with your father after lunch on Wednesday. It was thought they were arguing when they went into the parlour. What was their relationship? Did they have business dealings together?”
“Henry Collins was in the house? Well, well. And how did you learn that?”
“I saw them walking that way when your father left the Primrose and, well, your maid, Peggy, heard them come into the house. She may be the only one who knew he was there. I hope her giving out this information won’t be held against her.”
“Mmm. You think he might be involved?”
“I really don’t know. We need to eliminate the possibles until all we have left is the probable. Can you help with that?”
He sighed heavily and rubbed his hand over his face. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t complain if it turned out to be someone other than a family member. Henry Collins and my father owned two steamers, Mrs. Berry, the Perseus, and the Parrot, and three barges, Allen, Oxford, and Maxine. Both steamers are working with a barge each. The Maxine, unfortunately, is rotting away on a sandbank downriver near Euston with a great hole in her hull, not worth salvaging.”
“Oh dear.” It was a common story. “How are they doing, businesswise?”
“Not so well, now. Father was past managing the business, I’m afraid, and Collins never seemed to lift a finger. He leaves it up to the captains, neither of whom have the business experience or contacts, and it isn’t their business to manage in any case. The steamers rarely carry a full cargo either way these days.”
“So, what might they have been arguing about?”
Nathaniel stroked his chin thoughtfully. “What indeed. There are rumours that Collins’ business dealings are stretched for cash right now.”
“I can vouch for that,” Alex put in, looking up. “I’ve been chasing him for payment of his account for weeks. He’s a slippery fellow when he wants to be.”
“Mmm. He might have been pressing Father to sell, or buy him out,” Nathaniel said.
“And your father refusing?”
“Very likely,” he said wryly.
“So, what happens to the fleet now, do you know?”
“Collins will get full ownership, for what it’s worth.”
“But that gives him a motive.”
“It does, but it would depend how desperate he was, Mrs. Berry.”
It would indeed. Was he being pressed by other creditors, apart from Alex’s livery stable?
The door at the end of the waiting room opened and Jonathan Inglis came into view. All four of them were on their feet, expectant, but he was alone.
“I can’t get bail, I’m sorry. It’s a capital crime she’s charged with after all. But you can visit for a few minutes, one at a time.”
Henrietta, Alex, and Nathaniel all looked at one another.
“You go,” Henrietta said to Alex. As he disappeared into the nether regions of the station in company with a police officer, Henrietta turned to Nathaniel.
“He’s beside himself. I couldn’t make him wait any longer.”
“Of course not,” he said touching her arm for a brief moment. Emma wondered again why they weren’t living together.
Emma and Henrietta sat again, and Nathaniel moved away and spoke quietly to Mr. Inglis. Emma knew she was going to have to front Henry Collins as soon as possible, but the thought of doing it alone didn’t appeal. He would most likely just brush her off, at best. She stood and hovered quietly by the men.
“What is it?” Nathaniel asked, a trifle curtly.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but we were just talking about Mr. Collins and his visit to your father after lunch on Wednesday, Mr. Pickles. He needs to be questioned. I was rather hoping that one of you might accompany me on that task.”
“What’s this?” Jonathan Inglis asked. “There’s someone else involved?”
Nathaniel briefly outlined what Emma had seen, and Peggy had apparently heard.
“That’s very interesting, indeed, but why would you be involved, Mrs. er, Berry isn’t it?”
Emma nodded. “Henrietta asked me to be involved because of my past experience investigating several suspicious deaths. It seems obvious that the police aren’t going to make any further enquiries now. They believe they’ve got the person responsible.”
“That’s true, from what Sergeant Donovan said when I spoke to him. The coroner is of the opinion the blow to the head caused the heart attack that killed Mr. Pickles, and that Mrs. Naughton delivered the blow.”
Emma nodded again. “Would you accompany me to interview this man, Mr. Inglis?” she asked.
Jonathan Inglis’ eyebrows rose. “Ah, well, as you witnessed him walking with Mr. Pickles, and heard what the maid had to say, your presence would certainly add weight to any questioning. But may I suggest I lead any interview?”
Nathaniel made a noise in the back of his throat. Put in her place?
“That would be perfectly acceptable, Mr. Inglis,” Emma said sweetly. “And of course, at some point your own whereabouts on the day in question will have to be ascertained as well. Both of you.”
The men exchanged alarmed - or was it outraged - looks.
“Really, Mrs. Berry, I must object. That I would raise a hand to my own father.” Definitely outrage from Nathaniel Pickles.
“It’s no less unreasonable that his granddaughter being suspected of doing so, don’t you think?” Emma replied.
Jonathan Inglis cleared his throat. “But the lady is quite right, Mr. Pickles,” he said. “The police should have questioned everyone in the house, but they’re so sure they have the culprit they‘ve been quite derelict in their investigation. I’ve seen it far too often. It’s why I took up the law.”
Emma sensed a story behind that statement. She thrilled. Had she met a fellow traveler? He was certainly eying her with a little more interest. Alex returned to the waiting room at that moment, and Henrietta was escorted inside to visit Janet.
“How is she?” Emma asked. His colour had returned and he was looking a little brighter.
“Frightened,” he said. “Angry. She trusts you’ll sort this out, Emma. We both do.” He looked at her imploringly.
Emma put her hand on his arm. “We’ll do our very best, Alex. Mr. Inglis and me. Won’t we, Mr. Inglis?”
“We will indeed,” Jonathan replied, if a trifle bemused.
“Then I suggest we get on and find Mr. Collins quickly,” Emma said. “We aren’t doing any good just standing here. Can anyone tell me where Mr. Collins lives?”
“Two doors past the Exchange Hotel, which is two doors past my place,” Alex told them, meaning his livery stable. Back to Hare Street it would be then.