Daniel and Abigail were working together to prepare their evening meal when there was a knock at the door.
‘Wonder who that can be?’ wondered Daniel.
‘The easiest way to find out is open the door,’ said Abigail with a smile.
Daniel did, and returned to the kitchen with Inspector Feather.
‘It’s John,’ he announced.
‘You’re just in time for food,’ said Abigail. ‘Lamb chops and mash? It’s no problem to put another chop on.’
‘Thanks, but Vera will have something ready for me. I’ve come to tell you about another murder.’
‘Another?’ said Abigail sharply.
‘The barman from The Flower Pot in Seven Dials, Jake Walker. Stabbed through the heart.’ He looked at Daniel. ‘The potman at The Flower Pot said he nipped out shortly after you’d been.’
Daniel groaned. ‘This is my fault,’ he said. ‘I threatened to go to the police and suggest they bring him in for questioning if he didn’t tell me what he knew about the rich man. He must have immediately gone to see him and told him about the threat. I bet he asked for money to keep silent, the same as I expect Joe Wallace did. But they were both unlucky. It looks like this character made sure they stayed silent.’ He sat down heavily on a chair. ‘If I hadn’t done that, he’d still be alive.’
‘You don’t know that for certain,’ said Feather. ‘Sooner or later he’d have tried to put the squeeze on this mystery man, and he’d have got it then. Are you any nearer to finding out who this rich man is? Have you got more on this Heppenstall character?’
‘Only that we can count him out. He has a cast iron alibi for one of the murders, and as it appears both women were killed by the same person, that’s him out of the frame.’
‘But we’ve got another possible suspect,’ said Abigail. ‘Someone I knew when I was at Cambridge. Lord Powbry. His wife killed herself after she was rejected by Walter Sickert.’
‘Rejected?’ said Feather surprised.
‘Yes, that was our reaction,’ said Daniel. ‘But it seems at the time Sickert was trying to prove to his wife he was the faithful husband.’
‘That man’s life seems to be a romantic disaster,’ said Feather. ‘What’s your next move?’
‘We meet Abberline at the National Gallery tomorrow morning at ten, introduce him to Stanford Beckett, and then we work out what we’re going to do. Abigail’s already volunteered to go and talk to Lord Powbry, see if there’s anything suspicious there. This second murder at The Flower Pot makes me think that’s where we might find some answers. Two men dead? That suggests whoever’s doing it stays close to Seven Dials.’
‘I’d be very careful if I were you,’ warned Feather. ‘As you said, two men dead. You don’t want to be the third.’
After Feather had gone, Abigail looked at Daniel, concerned. ‘He’s got a good point. Walking around Seven Dials asking questions could be very dangerous.’
‘As could asking difficult questions of Lord Powbry, if he turns out to our mystery man.’
‘I’ll be careful,’ said Abigail.
‘So will I,’ said Daniel.
The next morning Daniel and Abigail were waiting for Abberline beside the main entrance to the National Gallery, and when he arrived – on the dot at 10 a.m. – they took him to meet Stanford Beckett, who shook his hand as warmly as if he was being introduced to royalty.
‘Mr Abberline,’ said Beckett. ‘This is such an honour. I’ve read all about your exploits in the newspapers. I’ve followed your career with the greatest admiration. I feel both humbled and grateful to feel that you have agreed to join our investigation.’
After, Daniel and Abigail took Abberline to the gallery’s cafeteria for coffee, where he asked, curious: ‘Mr Beckett is a very effusive man. Does he greet everybody that way?’
‘Not that we’ve noticed,’ said Abigail. ‘One can only assume he has a very high opinion of you.’
‘Let’s hope we don’t let him down,’ said Abberline. ‘So, what’s the plan?’
They told him the latest developments: the murder of Jake Walker at The Flower Pot; that Edmund Heppenstall was no longer a suspect because he had a cast iron alibi, and that Lord Powbry – formerly James Dowsett, a student with Abigail in Cambridge – had been added in as a possible suspect.
‘It’s all a bit tenuous,’ said Abberline.
‘That’s true, but we haven’t got a lot else to go on,’ said Daniel. ‘So Abigail’s going to have a word with him, sound him out and see if he’s got an alibi for the time of the murders; and I thought I’d go and make myself unpopular in Seven Dials by nosing around.’
‘Setting a trap with yourself as bait?’ asked Abberline.
‘I hope not,’ said Daniel. ‘What thoughts have you had?’
‘I was thinking about what you said, about the man who was with Wallace when he attacked you. You said that perhaps he was a pal of Wallace’s, so I thought I’d go to Whitechapel and see if I can find any pals of Wallace’s who might fit the bill. If so, we’ll have our lead to this rich bloke.’
‘It’ll be like looking for a needle in a haystack.’
‘True, but I know the place and the people. Remember, I spent years working there before the Ripper investigation.’
‘They’re suspicious of coppers in Whitechapel.’
‘Not everyone. There were some good people there that I got to know when I was based there, before the Ripper murders. Some of them will still be around. One thing’s for sure, when this sort of thing happens and there’s the threat of a major influx of coppers in the area, the locals will be keen to help out. They don’t like it when the place is flooded with coppers. You’ll remember that from the Ripper investigation, Daniel. It interferes with regular criminal activity.’
Abberline stood and looked at the window display of Fenster’s Funerals. All very tasteful. Black ribbons coming down from the top of the window and wrapped around bundles of white flowers. The flowers looked as if they were long past their bloom, wilted and shrivelled, but what was the point of spending good money on an expensive shop window display in Whitechapel, it would only get stolen at night.
He pushed open the door, causing the bell above the doorframe to give a gentle tinkling sound. A small, tubby, bald man appeared from the back of the shop and his face lit up in welcome as he saw who it was.
‘Mr Abberline!’ he said, and held out his hand.
‘Mr Fenster,’ smiled Abberline in return, and shook the funeral director’s hand.
‘It’s been a few years since we’ve seen you round these parts,’ said Fenster. ‘We saw in the papers you’d retired.’
‘It was the right time,’ said Abberline. ‘How have things been with you?’
Fenster shrugged. ‘People die. It’s the only thing that’s guaranteed in life. What can I do for you?’
‘Joe Wallace,’ said Abberline.
‘Ah yes,’ nodded Fenster. He gestured at the back room. ‘I’ve got him here. The police delivered him. Pauper’s funeral, that one. The public purse.’
‘I’m trying to find out who his friends were.’
‘Friends?’
‘Yes. We’re trying to find out who killed him, and we’re hoping we can find out who he went to Seven Dials to meet.’
Fenster shook his head. ‘It’s a long way to go to die. Lily said the police tried to say at first he’d killed himself, but he didn’t. Joe wasn’t the type.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘Mostly, Joe just worked. He did stuff for Karl Ramsden and a butcher at Cable Street.’
‘Yes, I’ve already been to see Karl,’ said Abberline.
‘Joe wasn’t what you’d call the sociable type, so he didn’t go to pubs much. Hardly ever. I think Lily kept an eye on their money.’ He looked enquiringly at Abberline. ‘Sergeant Whetstone’s still at the local nick. He was looking into it after they brought Joe back. He might know something.’
Abberline sighed. ‘I’ve already had a word with him. He’s as wise as I am. It seems Joe kept his private business very much to himself.’ He produced a small pasteboard business card, which he handed to Fenster. ‘If you do hear anything, I’d be grateful if you’d get in touch.’
‘You’re not with the police, then?’
‘Not officially, but we’re working with them.’
‘Ah, so you’re working with your old sergeant, Daniel Wilson, and that Miss Fenton.’
‘I am indeed.’
‘How’s that going?’
‘Working with them, very good. This case? Banging my head against a brick wall.’
Abigail had to admit to butterflies in her stomach as she approached the address she’d been given for Lord Powbry. It was all of fifteen years since she’d last seen him in Cambridge at an event organised by the Egypt Society and there had been no contact between them since then. Surely he’d view her arrival with suspicion after all this time; and especially if he was the mystery ‘rich man’. By all accounts the mystery ‘rich man’ had killed people who represented a danger to him, notably Joe Wallace and the barman at The Flower Pot. How would he react when Abigail started asking questions? James had always been a quiet sort, introverted, but astute. She had to be very careful how she raised the subject of his movements on the nights the two women were murdered. She’d just mention one of those nights so it wouldn’t seem too obvious what she was after. At least, she hoped it wouldn’t.
Her forthcoming trip to Egypt with Conan Doyle would be her lead in. Ask him if he was still involved with the Egypt Society, and if not, if he had any contacts there he could put her in touch with.
God, it’s so feeble! she admitted to herself unhappily. She was supposed to be the internationally acknowledged Egyptologist, why would she be asking about some tiny university student organisation? It was so obviously a ploy. But what else could she use?
She walked up to the steps to the front door and pulled the bell pull. The door opened and a buxom woman of about fifty in a flowery apron looked out inquisitively at her.
‘Good day,’ smiled Abigail. ‘My name’s Abigail Fenton. I’m an old friend of Lord Powbry from his Cambridge days. Would it be possible to see him?’
Lily Wallace stood in the back room of Karl Ramsden’s butcher’s shop, her baby asleep in her arms, and watched as Mick Foley attacked a side of lamb on a wooden bench with a small hand axe.
‘Are you listening to me, Mick?’ demanded Lily.
Reluctantly, Mick put down the axe. ‘Of course I am,’ he said.
‘But you’re not answering me! Who was the rich toff that Joe used to go off with?’
‘I tell you I don’t know!’ answered Mick for the third time. ‘I didn’t even know there was a rich toff. All I know is that a couple of times Joe didn’t turn up for work on the night shift, and later he said he’d had some private work.’
Lily sagged against the wall, feeling defeated. Mick was the fourth pal of Joe’s she’d sought out to ask him about the mystery man in the carriage, and got the same response from him as she’d had from the previous three. No one knew what Joe had been up to, or who this rich bloke was, nor even where he came from.
As she left the butcher’s she reflected that if only there had been another woman in Joe’s life she’d have had more chance of finding out who the toff was. Men always talked to their women. Not necessarily to their wives. She and Joe didn’t really talk, she was too busy with the kids, and Joe worked all the hours at different butchers. But someone knew.
Then she thought of where Joe had been killed. That pub in Seven Dials. What had he been doing there? Meeting the rich bloke, that was what. She was wasting her time asking questions here in Whitechapel. Seven Dials, that’s where she should be. Talking to the people in that Flower Pot pub. Someone there would know who this rich bloke was. And she’d get them to tell her. There’d been that barman at The Flower Pot when she went there with the police, she’d seen him looking at her. He’d know, and if he didn’t, he’d know who’d know. She could tell by the way he looked at her that he fancied her. Well, she’d get him to talk. Let him touch her up a bit first, then keep him waiting from going all the way until she’d got the name out of him. She smiled at the thought.
Daniel left The Flower Pot, heavy with feelings of disappointment and frustration. The potman, Mason, had insisted he hadn’t even been at the pub when the barman, Jake Walker, had been killed. Nor had he seen anyone who could be described as rich in the pub, or near it, either before he’d gone off to the baker’s to buy himself a bun, or when he’d returned to find Walker dead. The customers at the pub all told the same tale: none of them had been in the pub the previous day. Even if there was money to be made by talking, none of them had seen anything or knew anything.
Daniel didn’t blame them: two men had been killed the day before because it was assumed they had been ready to talk. No one else wanted to die.
As Daniel made his way towards the actual Seven Dials clock, and thence home, a man watched him from the shadows of a tumbledown building.
Wilson again, he cursed silently and venomously. The man was like a damned terrier. Because of him, he’d been forced to kill two men. The last, the barman at The Flower Pot, had actually named Wilson as the reason he’d come looking for him. What did Wilson know? How close was he? There was only one answer; Wilson would have to die.
At her house, Jane Cobden picked up the invitation card that had been propped up on the mantelpiece and read: ‘Mrs Walter Sickert and her guest are invited to the unveiling of two paintings from the collection of J. M. W. Turner, to be shown alongside two by Claude Lorrain at the National Gallery, London on the afternoon of Monday 22nd February 1897.’
‘Are you going to this tomorrow?’ she asked.
‘No,’ said Ellen firmly. ‘I will not allow myself to be a figure of fun and humiliation, with those dreadful people sniggering about me behind my back.’
‘They’re not all dreadful,’ said Jane. ‘Two of Tom’s authors are going to be there. Herbert Wells and the new one, Somerset Maugham.’
‘One an unabashed lecher and the other a nonentity,’ said Ellen.
‘Tom has great hopes for Somerset Maugham.’ She sighed. ‘But I agree with you about Wells. No woman is safe with him. I wouldn’t trust him in a convent. But then, the same could be said of Walter.’
‘Which is exactly why I will not be going.’