CHAPTER 12

Lady Sara thought Reggie Dempster should be told what his casual sleuthing had accomplished. She invited him to stop by after her coffee hour. He arrived promptly, impeccably dressed as always, all smiles and expectations as though he expected her to announce a legacy for him.

Lady Sara looked at him critically. “You’ve changed your barber,” she observed.

Dempster blinked at her. “The old one died. Left me feeling totally deprived, don’t you know. Like losing an old servant. How did you find out?”

“Your new barber trims your moustache differently.”

“Does he really? I suppose it’s plain as the nose on my face, but I hadn’t noticed.”

“Not quite so plain as that,” Lady Sara said. “The difference is more like a hair’s breadth.”

She made him comfortable in her drawing room, had the maid serve coffee, and then explained what Clarke-Ivatt had been up to. “Thanks to your astute observation, the police will soon have the entire gang in prison. As a result, numerous houses it had targeted will not be burgled, and their owners have good reason to be grateful to you—though of course they will never know that.”

“You don’t say!” Dempster seemed overwhelmed. “Being a hero on the side of law and order is a new experience for me. Is there anything else I could do?”

Lady Sara smiled. “I’m afraid Clarke-Ivatt was a fluke. Your contacts with criminals must be extremely infrequent, which is, of course, a good thing. For example, we have a gruesome murder on our hands that took place down by Shadwell Market.”

Dempster shook his head. “I see what you mean. That’s a bit out of my orbit. Can’t remember the last time I was down there. The whole neighbourhood stinks of fish and other unmentionables, and I prefer to avoid that sort of thing. I only expose myself to the river, or vice versa, at the Henley Regatta. If there’s ever anything you need investigated at Henley—”

Lady Sara smiled again. “We are also looking for a giant,” she said. “Unfortunately, very few members of the Oxford and Cambridge Club or the Rag could meet the necessary specifications.”

Dempster threw his head back and laughed. “I’m afraid not. I don’t recall meeting anyone at either club who impressed me that way if by ‘giant’ you mean ‘tall.’ Some of the members have well-developed horizontal dimensions, but they lack the vertical qualification. But hold a moment. I believe I did see a giant recently.”

“Really?” Lady Sara was humouring him. “Where did you see him?”

Dempster meditated for a moment. “It was in Regent Street.”

“You saw a bona fide giant in Regent Street?”

“If being tall makes a giant, I certainly did. Towered over everyone and everything. He was big all over—not fat, just big.” He looked from one of us to the other. “What’s so unusual about that? Is there some regulation against being a giant in Regent Street?”

“The giant we are looking for is more likely to hang out in an East End slum,” Lady Sara said. “Tell us how you happened to see a giant in Regent Street.”

“’Happened’ is the word. I was in a cab. It was about noon, and workmen had the street up. Somewhere between Conduit Street and the New Gallery, I think it was. They always choose the time and place that will create the most ghastly chaos. We waited, and waited, and waited. Having nothing else to do, I watched pedestrians going about their shopping, and this giant walked past. Had a little old woman on his arm. She didn’t look half his height. They went into a shop. At that moment traffic cleared, and we left.”

“How old was the giant?” Lady Sara asked.

Dempster reflected. “Not a stooped old man with a beard or anything like that. Youngish, meaning twenty-five to forty. Spiffed out, too. Acres of checkered suit topped by a boater. Straw hats are always in poor taste, and a straw hat on a giant looks preposterous. I remember thinking what a valuable account he would make for a tailor or a hatter.”

“What about the little old woman?” Lady Sara asked.

“I hardly noticed her. My attention was riveted on the giant, don’t you know.” He thought for a moment. “Elderly and stooped, with billowing skirts and a shawl—something out of the National Portrait Gallery. That’s the best I can do.”

Lady Sara carefully pronounced the critical question. “What shop did they go into?”

“Haven’t the faintest,” Dempster said. “As they turned in, we started with a jerk, and I forgot about them at once.”

“I know the place where they had the street up. Which way were you headed? North? And you saw them on the left-hand side of the street? It should be possible to trace them. Thank you.”

Dempster apologized for his memory. “Mind like a sieve,” he complained. “Catches this and lets that go. No system to it at all.”

“It seems to have caught enough,” Lady Sara assured him. “Perhaps this will make you a hero on the side of law and order a second time.”

As soon as he left, we were off to Regent Street. Lady Sara not only knew the precise location where the street had been up three weeks before, but she also knew what shops were to be found in the vicinity. “First we’ll try Hobbs and Preety, the drapers,” she said. “The other choices are a jeweller, a colourman, a perfumer, and a wine merchant.”

One of the things most severely lacking in my East End childhood was the romance of London’s shops. I rarely glimpsed the inside of even the shabby establishments available there. It was possible to buy almost anything one needed, or wanted, or could afford, from street vendors. That deprivation could never be made up. Long after I reached adulthood, I delighted in joining throngs of children before the windows of Buszard’s, the pastry cook in Oxford Street, and gazing with watering mouth at the tiered bride-cakes and other pastries of unbelievable size as well as jam-puffs, cream-buns, and a long miscellany of delicacies unimagined in my youth.

I never saw a draper’s shop until after Lady Sara and her mother took charge of me, and by then I was virtually grown up. Even so, the incredible wealth of fabrics in rainbow colours never failed to fascinate me. Equally intriguing was the conduct of the ladies shopping. They seemed to spend infinite amounts of time deciding between this triviality and that, and the shop assistants wisely avoided hurrying them and were always willing to step outside with them to match a bit of ribbon in better light.

But the overwhelming attraction in the draper’s shop was the cash railway or overhead change carrier. The assistant packed bill and cash into a wooden ball and sent it spiraling up to an overhead track, where it rolled completely across the shop to drop off the rails onto the cashier’s desk. There were dozens of balls rolling unerringly from all parts of the shop, never falling off even at points where the rails intersected. Then came the return journeys with the customers’ change. I always regretted never seeing this when I was younger.

While Lady Sara talked with the manager, I renewed my acquaintance with a cash railway and listened with half an ear, as the poets say. The manager was apologetic. He knew nothing about any giants, but of course it was impossible for him to know all of his customers personally. If Lady Sara cared to interview his assistants, he had no objection.

The first assistant we talked with remembered the giant vividly. He was a man about thirty, very sedate and mild looking, but at the mention of a little old woman and her oversized escort, he burst into laughter. Then clapped his hand over his mouth, flushed crimson, and apologized.

“I’m sorry, my lady,” he said, “but it was the funniest thing that has happened here in ages.”

“It must have been,” Lady Sara said sympathetically.

“It was old Miss Chalmer. Miss Penelope Chalmer.”

“Of course,” Lady Sara said. “Her name would be Penelope.”

The assistant swallowed another laugh. “She has been our customer for donkey’s years, my lady. Comes in regularly four times a year from some place in the country, I believe. The last time—it couldn’t have been more than two or three weeks ago—she brought with her—”

He paused and rearranged his face again. Then, when he noticed the manager watching him, he suddenly became very solemn. “Spring, summer, autumn, and the Christmas season. We could set our calendar by Miss Chalmer. She is a dear old person, really—very temperamental and fussy if she thinks she isn’t being looked after with courtesy and dispatch, always threatening to report the assistant but she never does. She’ll take an hour to pick out six inches of ribbon and then settle on yards of material with one glance.”

“On her last visit, she brought an extremely large man with her,” Lady Sara reminded him. “Did she happen to mention who he was or why he was accompanying her?”

“Actually, she did. He was her roomer, and he had never seen London before.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Never opened his mouth all the time he was here, my lady. Just stood there watching the cash railway while she made her selections. Then they left with him carrying her packages.”

“Would you call him a genuine giant, or was he merely a rather tall man?”

“He was genuine,” the assistant said fervently. “Well over seven feet, I am sure.”

“And how old a person was he?”

“Difficult to say with him wearing that outlandish suit and keeping his boater pulled down tight on his head. I thought he looked quite young, but perhaps in other clothing—”

Lady Sara nodded. “Where in the country does Miss Chalmer live?”

“I’ll find out for you.”

He was back three minutes later. “Miss Penelope Chalmer, 9 Green Lane, Whitham. According to our records, she has always lived in Whitham, but she has only been at that address for the past four years.”

We went outside, and Old John sprang down to open the carriage door for us. Lady Sara paused with her foot on the step. “After weeks of tedious search, I wonder if this is actually going to be as easy as it looks.”

“Probably not,” I said. “The giant will have left for Siberia last night.”

We drove directly to Liverpool Station and caught the next Great Eastern train to Whitham, pausing only for Lady Sara to telephone Chief Inspector Mewer at Scotland Yard and ask for a favour. Probably this consumed him with curiosity, as did most of her requests, but he promised to comply.

Whitham was a trip of only forty miles, but the distance seemed to be measured in decades as we steamed north. It was a town of no special significance to us except that it harboured a giant. He was not visible from the railway station, however. We took a cab to the police station, where Inspector Vann, the officer in charge, made us welcome. Chief Inspector Mewer’s telegram had already provided an introduction for us.

Lady Sara’s message was brief. She was looking for a giant. A witness had seen one in London in the company of Miss Penelope Chalmer, of Green Lane. Before interviewing Miss Chalmer, she wanted to know whether there was any official information about this giant.

Inspector Vann pursed his lips thoughtfully. “When did your witness see him in London, my lady?”

“Three weeks ago,” Lady Sara said.

The Inspector nodded gravely. “That would have been just before it happened.”

“Before what happened?”

“The giant, who was known locally as Rafe Wade, was murdered.”

Both of our faces must have registered consternation and astonishment.

“Set upon by thugs, he was,” the Inspector continued grimly. “They beat him to death. A very cruel thing it was, my lady. He had lived here for more than a year. He was a gentle soul, never caused any trouble. Because of that, he was often challenged to fight. He steadfastly refused—perhaps he was afraid of what his enormous strength might do to his opponent. As for his murder, no one saw it done, and we are completely without clues. We figure a mob of outsiders was responsible. I don’t believe local men would have set upon him so viciously. Those scoundrels must have had a drop too much, and they cornered him on his way home and beat him with clubs. It was a shockingly cruel thing, indeed it was. Only after he was dead did we find out his real identity.”

“Who was he?” Lady Sara asked.

“Hob Hagan,” the Inspector said.

Lady Sara and I exchanged dumbfounded glances. “Didn’t it strike you as a whopping coincidence that you had a giant named Hob Hagan living here in Whitham at the same time that a giant axe murderer of that name was being hanged in London?” she asked.

“Indeed it did,” the Inspector admitted. “Our Rafe Wade must have been a relative of the axe murderer. Giantism can run in families or so I’ve heard. Rafe probably felt so embarrassed by what his relative had done that he changed his name. I would do the same if I were a giant with a name identical to that of a giant axe murderer.”

He took us to the churchyard where a white marker of wood had been erected on the site of the new grave. The identification was painted on it in black letters and numerals: “Hob Hagan, 1868-1900,” followed by this message: “Sent to his rest by a foul and most unnatural murder.”

We went to see Miss Penelope Chalmer, who for the past four years had been living with a nephew and his wife in a fairly new but ugly house near the railway station. Rafe Wade had roomed with them for more than a year before he was murdered.

The tiny Miss Chalmer was indeed something out of a National Portrait Gallery painting—old-fashioned in appearance and dress from her hair to her pointed-toe cloth shoes, billowing skirt, and shawl. I wondered whether her nephew and his wife had a struggle on their hands to keep her from wearing a bustle when she went out.

Mention of the giant brought real tears. Mention of the name Hob Hagan brought an angry response. “His name was Rafe Wade. I know that was his name, my lady. He told me all about himself, and his family, and where he came from.”

“Then why was he buried as Hob Hagan?” Lady Sara asked.

“The day after he was killed, a solicitor representng Rafe’s family called on us. The family was willing to pay all the expenses of his burial, he said, but it insisted that Rafe be buried under his real name. It sounded fishy to me, but the expenses were a problem because Rafe didn’t have any savings and my nephew John and I couldn’t afford the nice burial we wanted him to have. So John said to me, ‘Aunt, he’ll always be Rafe to us. What does it matter what they put on his tombstone?’

“So we consented. The solicitor was nice—he let me choose a line to commemorate Rafe, and he paid for everything. Had the wood marker up in less than a week, and the tombstone is already paid for and ready to set in place as soon as the ground settles.”

“Who was the solicitor?” Lady Sara asked.

Miss Chalmer looked at her blankly. “It never occurred to me to ask his name, my lady. We were so upset and all.”

“So it was you who picked the line on the grave marker,” Lady Sara said. “I noticed you left out the beginning. From Shakespeare’s Hamlet, isn’t it? It should read, ‘Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.”

“It didn’t seem proper to be mentioning revenge in a churchyard,” Miss Chalmer said. “But I thought revenge. I still think revenge. I’ll always think revenge. Lady Sara, Rafe was only twenty. He was a sweet boy, gentle and considerate of everyone. Beating him to death like that was a horrible thing, and if there is a just God in heaven, He surely will see that those responsible are punished.”

“He surely will,” Lady Sara agreed. “And I, for one, am willing to give God a hand in it.”

She took down the information Miss Chalmer remembered about Rafe Wade’s life before he came to Whitham, after which we walked over to the station and caught the next train to London.

“I wonder what Chief Inspector Mewer will say when we hand him a third Hob Hagan?” she mused as we watched the rich Essex landscape roll past.

I knew the answer to that. What I couldn’t account for was the incredible coincidence of this third Hob Hagan being murdered just before we located him.

“Rafe Wade was only twenty years old,” Lady Sara said. “Just a boy. Penelope Chalmer wouldn’t make a mistake about something like that. The dates on the tombstone were the real Hob Hagan’s dates—1868 to 1900. The message is clear enough, isn’t it? The person responsible knew we were searching for a giant. There are so few of them around that he also knew we would be certain to learn about Rafe Wade, sooner or later. So he decided to make use of him.”

“Who is ‘he?’” I asked.

“When we know that, we can wind up all of our cases and clear the board. The solicitor who so generously paid for the funeral—and absent-mindedly neglected to leave his name—is as bogus a character as we have ever encountered. Someone wanted us to believe Hob Hagan is dead and was willing to go to any length at all—even murder—to convince us. Unfortunately for him, the result is the opposite of what he intended. I take this to be incontrovertible proof that Hob Hagan is alive.”

There was a momentary diversion when we arrived back in London. One of Lady Sara’s maids asked if her mother could come for a consultation. Lady Sara agreed and asked me to be present. Hilda Cruthers was a pleasant-looking, middle-aged woman who had once worked as maid to one of Lady Sara’s friends. In her free time she taught herself to typewrite on her master’s machine, and now she was a professional typist with her own business office. Lady Sara felt a close affinity for any woman who could achieve such success in an age overwhelmingly dominated by men, and she greeted her warmly.

Mrs. Cruthers’s problem was one of the most peculiar we had ever encountered. Her landlord, a Mr. Beveridge, who occupied the downstairs flat just below hers, had taken to burning some kind of incense—“An awful, cinnamon odour,” she said—which was making her life miserable. It completely permeated the inside of the building and was even noticeable outside. She complained to the landlord; he said the incense was helpful to his catarrh, and as soon as his condition improved, he would stop burning it. She complained to a constable whose beat that was, and he laughed about it; he thought it a rather pleasant scent. Of course he only smelled it from the street. She didn’t want to offend her landlord, but she absolutely could not tolerate the stench any longer. Unless something could be done about it, she would have to move. Could Lady Sara suggest anything?

Lady Sara smiled resignedly. Such requests resulted from her growing reputation for performing all kinds of miracles. They were always a nuisance, but she was sufficiently intrigued by Mrs. Cruthers’s problem to visit her flat and experience the stench herself.

It was overwhelming. The house was a dignified building in Bloomsbury. Mrs. Cruthers’s flat was fresh-looking and neatly furnished—altogether a pleasant place to live. Her window looked down on her landlord’s garden, which was enclosed by walls. He was a meticulous gardener. Gravelled walks led through neatly cropped turf to bird baths, bird feeders, and a careful planting of shrubs and berry bushes that would appeal to birds. Lady Sara gazed at the scene with fascination.

“Sparrows I would have expected, but I see robins, a wood pigeon, a jay, and several finches. Interesting that these birds should be attracted so far from the parks. I take it that Mr. Beveridge is fond of birds.”

“Oh, yes, my lady. He also keeps canaries and several other kinds of birds in the house,” Mrs. Cruthers said.

“Is he also fond of animals?”

“Oh, yes, he keeps two dogs.”

“How long has his catarrh been bothering him?”

“I don’t know, my lady. He never mentioned it before.”

“Is he married?”

“Yes. His wife is a very nice woman. There would be no problem if she were here, but she is away looking after her mother, who is ill.”

Mrs. Cruthers had esteemed her landlord highly until the odour problem started. He had been pleasant and helpful. She loved her flat; she would hate to move, but unless something could be done she would have no choice.

Lady Sara thought for a moment. “Is anyone in the neighbourhood missing a cat?” she asked.

“Why, yes!” Mrs. Cruthers exclaimed. “Mrs. Ibbs, in the building next door, has been looking everywhere for hers.”

The denouement came swiftly. Lady Sara, accompanied by the constable, Mrs. Ibbs, and Mrs. Cruthers, called at the landlord’s flat. Mr. Beveridge’s attitude was one of beligerent denial. Then he broke down and confessed. Day after day the nasty cat somehow got over the wall and stalked birds around his feeders. Seeds would fall to the ground, birds would alight to feed, and the cat would waiting to grab them. The climax came when he found a robin’s wing lying under a feeder. The poor little thing had virtually been a pet, and the cat had torn it apart.

The next time he saw the cat, he stalked it and broke its back with a poker. He hadn’t thought about disposing of it until after it was dead. Windows of several buildings looked down on his garden, so he had to hurriedly carry the dead cat inside. There was no way he could bury it without spoiling the results of the enormous amount of work he had performed on his garden and also without the danger of being seen. He also was afraid to simply dump it into his dust bin.

At that point he lost his head completely and decided to burn the cat, not realizing what a stench there would be. In desperation, he went out and bought incense, which proved unexpectedly strong, and its odour had lasted longer than he had thought possible. He hadn’t burned any for two days, now, but the smell seemed as powerful as ever. He was sure it would go away eventually.

Mrs. Cruthers had to be content with that. The problem of the cat’s murder was left for the constable to deal with. Lady Sara received congratulations all around, except from Mr. Beveridge, and added another miracle to her credit.

“Obviously the purpose of the incense was to conceal another odour,” she said. “It was difficult to imagine what the respectable Mr. Beveridge had to hide until I saw his garden. He had created a miniature paradise for birds, and his reaction when it attracted a serpent in the form of a cat could be predicted. All I had to do was enquire about a missing cat.”

“There were a number of simple solutions available to him,” I said. “If he hadn’t been so stupid, he could have waited until dark and thrown the cat into the Regent’s Canal. Then there would have no odour and no case.”

Lady Sara nodded. “It’s fortunate that so many criminals are stupid—or unimaginative, which amounts to the same thing. We have the river thefts to remind us of the difficulties that result when a criminal is brilliant.”