A Fatal Freedom (21 page)

Unexpectedly she laughed coarsely. ‘You, a gentleman? Pull the other one, whoever you are.’ She reached up and with a swift movement, pulled off his moustache. Triumph lit her expression. ‘I knew it! It’s time you came clean with me. Told me who you are and what you think you’re doing.’ With a look of challenge, she dropped the disguise on the ground, releasing the hairy accessory with a disdainful flick of her fingers.

Automatically Thomas picked it up, shoving it in his pocket, his upper lip smarting. A hand underneath her elbow, he steered her along a path through the park’s generous sweeps of green grass and mature trees. Small birds pecked at the gravel round benches placed at the side of the path, no doubt seeking crumbs from sandwiches eaten in a Londoner’s lunch hour.

‘Do you think your mistress poisoned your master?’

She jerked her elbow away and swung round furiously on him, her eyes narrowing. ‘Why should I answer your questions when you won’t mine? Fine one you are.’

He was handling the situation badly. But how was he to know she could change her emotions as rapidly as a chameleon changed colour? Fun-loving, trusting Millie, with her innocent flirtatiousness had disappeared. It was as though the attractive sparkle of a calm sea had in a moment metamorphosed into a storm’s dangerous power.

‘Let’s sit down and I’ll tell you everything.’ The birds scattered in a flurry of wings as he led her to one of the benches. Lunch hour long past, there was a choice of several free ones.

With a look full of suspicion, Millie sat, smoothing the silk of her sky-blue skirt. Jackson remembered Mrs Peters wearing the outfit to a meeting with young Daniel.

‘As Mrs Trenchard told all the staff this morning, I’m a private investigator hired to look into the death of Mr Peters. Before he died, though, your master had previously charged me with following Mrs Peters; he was convinced she was having an affair.’

‘So that’s why you became Joe Banks; you thought I wouldn’t know what you was up to.’ Millie was triumphant, as though she had forced him to tell her the truth. ‘You thought I’d tell you everything about my mistress.’

‘From time to time it helped me to know where she was going,’ he murmured.

Once again Millie underwent one of her rapid changes of mood. ‘I didn’t mind who I told,’ she gave a little toss of her head. ‘So you needn’t think you was being so very clever. Mrs High and Mighty Peters; acted as though she was above us all. Didn’t know how lucky she was.’

‘Lucky?’

‘Had a husband with money, didn’t she? One who gave her everything she wanted. Jewels and clothes a princess wouldn’t mind wearing.’

‘Like that pretty dress you’re wearing?’

Millie glanced down at the blue silk with a satisfied smile. ‘Can’t wear it where she is now, can she?’

‘It does suit you,’ he said, injecting a note of admiration. ‘I always thought you were a girl with style. And I enjoyed our little outings, you’ve a way with you, young Millie.’

The satisfied smile deepened. ‘Have to say I liked the champagne, it was something different, all those bubbles. And the music hall was fun, never been to one before. It was nice being taken.’ The flirtatious look was back.

‘So when Mrs Peters left her home without telling you where she was going or taking you with her, you didn’t mind?’

Millie shrugged her shoulders and lifted her feet, glancing admiringly down at the smart little bootees.

‘Didn’t you worry that you’d lost your job … or did you think she’d send for you?’

‘Who’s to say I wasn’t offered a better position?’ Millie said smugly.

‘A better position?’

‘One where I’d have my own maid … and be given jewellery.’

There was a long pause then Jackman said, ‘So, just when you thought everything was going your way, Mrs Peters returns to her husband. Must have been a bit of a shock for you.’

‘Shock?’ With another of her rapid changes of mood, Millie sprang to her feet, snarling. ‘The bitch!’ She stood over Jackman, hands on hips, a virago. ‘She hadn’t wanted him but she crawls back expecting to take up as though she’d never left.’

‘And he took her back,’ Jackman said quietly, standing and looking down on her.

‘I told him he was a fool, that no good would come of it.’ She took a few unsteady steps away, turned and came back. ‘I’d never have thought it of him. First he tells me to get back where I came from, how he’d deny everything if I tried to tell anyone. Says he’s been given a second chance. What about me?’ The words came out in a long wail. ‘What second chance did I get?’

A passer-by looked interestedly at them. Millie paid no attention.

‘Oh, she was so clever, so meek and mild. And he was taken in all along the line.’

‘Taken in?’

She looked up at him scornfully. ‘You don’t think that baby is his? Popped up from a butcher’s shambles have yer? And I thought you was an educated man. She needed respectability. Well, she wasn’t going to get it with her fancy man, was she?’

‘But Peters believed her?’

‘Handle ’em right and a clever woman can get any man to believe anything.’

He had to admire her belief in her own cleverness.

‘All she had to do was wait and take her chance.’

‘Chance?’

‘That she could have it all. Could have her baby, could have respectability, and could have all his money.
And
she could have her fancy man as well.’

‘So you do think your mistress poisoned your master?’

‘Well, what do you think, mister investigator? Why do you think I gave that diary to the police? Why should she get away with such a dreadful act?’

‘You felt it was right to read her private diary?’

There was the slightest flush on her cheeks but she didn’t say anything.

Jackman reached into his pocket and brought out the pot he had found at the back of Peters’ desk. ‘Know anything about this?’

‘What is it?’

He offered it to her.

‘Oh, that! It’s,’ she coloured a little. ‘It’s cream … for the face. He gave me one. Said it would make me look even more beautiful.’ For the first time her voice faltered and she blinked rapidly. ‘Said he’d come across it in his business and made me take it. All I’ve got left to remember him by … that and a little bracelet. Thought it was diamonds but the pawnshop said it was only paste, wouldn’t advance me more than a few shillings on it,’ she ended bitterly. ‘Men, you can’t trust them.’ She looked up at him through her lashes. ‘Don’t suppose you’ll be wanting to see me again, either.’

Jackman smothered another tinge of guilt. ‘How did your master come across the face cream by way of his business? Thought that was arranging import and export.’ He remembered the busy office, the desk piled with bills of lading, the docks outside ringing to the coarse shouts of dockers and sailors.

Millie looked sulky. She settled the set of her jacket a little more advantageously round her waist. ‘Don’t know nothing about that. You’d better ask Albert.’

Albert, the mysterious valet.

‘Going to walk me back, are you?’ Once again Millie was in flirtatious mode.

* * *

Jackman escorted the maid back to the Peters household and found himself bowing over her hand in a continental manner to say goodbye, watching as she ran prettily up the front steps to ring the bell, tossing her head as Sarah opened the door. Just how much of what she had said could he rely upon?

Jackman went back down to the basement entrance and asked Sam where he could find Albert.

‘At the master’s office more than like. Gets all the best jobs, he does.’

Jackman was certain Mrs Trenchard would not weigh out for a hansom cab to take him there. Traffic was its usual tangle and omnibus travel would be slow; the day was fair and he decided to opt for Shankses’ pony. The walk through Holborn and Cheapside, and into the City brought back the days when he would patrol the streets as a humble bobby. Some fifteen years had passed since he’d become a detective but he reckoned that not much had changed. Checking who was amongst the crowds he had to negotiate, few matching his speed, was second nature to him and he reckoned he could identify a number of lowlife suspects without difficulty.

Suspicious characters increased as he approached Wapping, funnels and masts marking the docks and his destination. Small groups of idle and resentful dockers who’d lost out on a day’s employment hung around, ready to cause trouble. Chinese faces became more and more prevalent, as did sailors with faces from around the world. Jackson had not been personally involved with patrolling the docks or the river but he was well aware of the opportunities for nefarious activities in the tangle of narrow streets, the network of gangs who controlled the illegal dealings that sidestepped officialdom, banned goods and import duties. Here sordid doss houses, brothels and opium dens created areas even the hardiest policeman hesitated to go.

Jackman skirted a brawling group of carters, their drays causing gridlock as horses dropped dirt while waiting for drivers to sort out just which conveyance could successfully claim a right of way.

A few moments later he arrived at the offices of Peters and Roberts, relieved that he had negotiated the various blocks of warehouses without hesitation. Here suited office administrators and uniformed officials bustled, carts rumbled over cobblestones, the odd carriage brought gentlefolk to claim passage or meet travellers. Here ships unloaded or took on freight, signed off sailors, found new crews, said goodbye or took on new passengers, and threw slops over the side. Gulls screeched overhead, swooping on any edible fragment. The docks had to be the noisiest of any part of London, and the busiest.

As Jackman approached the offices, Albert emerged from the shabby building. A few words from the detective sufficed to remind the valet of Jackman’s investigation into Peters’ death. At first suspicious and monosyllabic, Albert reluctantly allowed himself to be taken off to one of the many public houses in the vicinity.

Lunchtime being long past, the pub was half empty and Jackman had no trouble finding them a small table in a quiet corner.

Once seated with a pint of ale in front of him, the valet gradually relaxed as Jackman filled in his background, adding a few choice reminiscences of his time as an East End copper, all the while unobtrusively studying the person sitting opposite.

Albert was a small, neat man in a brown suit, the jacket worn over a bright yellow and caramel striped waistcoat. His features were as neat as his person: a narrow face with bright dark eyes, a pointed nose and chin, his skin badly pock-marked, thin lips revealing blackened teeth with several gaps. There was a stillness about him, a listening quality that to Jackman suggested someone who absorbed information and observations as efficiently as a sponge and forgot little.

‘Not keeping you, am I?’ Jackman asked. ‘Only by rights I ought to get round to asking you about life in the Peters household. Justify my fee, as you might say.’

‘You might, doubt I would,’ Albert said, moving restlessly on his pew. ‘You got what time it is? Only I got an appointment.’

Jackman got out his timepiece, careful to shield it from the sight of the mean-looking fellows who were their fellow drinkers.

‘If you can supply the price of a cab back to town,’ said Albert, ‘I suppose I can spare fifteen minutes or so, specially if it means you can catch the bastard what poisoned Mr Peters.’ He finished his ale in a pointed manner and Jackman quickly supplied both of them with fresh pints.

‘First I ought to find out what your duties were. I’ve been told you were Mr Peters’ valet?’

Albert shrugged. ‘The master doesn’t … didn’t set much store on how he was turned out. Main part of me job was running messages for him and making deliveries. Had me at it day in, day out, said he couldn’t manage without me,’ he added virtuously.

‘What sort of deliveries?’

‘Shipping schedules, papers, bits of official stuff. I never knows what it all is; just do what I’m told. Sometimes it’s orders, what’s arrived at the docks, if they isn’t too large and needed special, like.’

‘You mean imported goods?’

Albert’s expression combined shiftiness with disquiet. ‘Look, it weren’t my business to know what was in the packages, I just collected and delivered. Anyway, you ain’t got the right to question me like this. It's not got anything to do with the master’s death.’

‘That’s for me to decide, not you. And I have every right to question all your dealings connected with Joshua Peters. For instance, you say you’re a valet but it doesn’t seem like you acted as one for your master.’

‘Now, see here. Whatever I may have said about ’im not caring about ’is appearance, I knows just how to turn a fellow out right; how to tie a cravat, polish a boot or shoe, shave a neat chin, trim a beard.’

Jackman smiled reassuringly at him. ‘So you would wake your master in the morning? Shave him and such like?’

Albert pulled at one of his ears nervously, the first indication the detective had seen the valet might lose his control. ‘I didn’t call him, I had to wait for his bell. ’E had a habit of waking early and studying papers and things before rising. Didn’t want to be disturbed before he needed to dress and be shaved.’

‘And on the morning he was found dead, what happened?’

The dark eyes were closed for a brief moment. ‘I was waiting for his bell.’ The narrow face looked pinched as though some strong emotion threatened to break out.

‘Doing what?’

‘Sorting the morning mail.’

‘Takes you long, that?’

‘A lot of business gets sent to the house.’ The explanation appeared to have a steadying effect. ‘If it’s not marked “personal” I opens all the letters and arranges them as the master likes … liked, in different piles.’

‘Sounds as though you were something of a secretary.’

A crafty smile stretched the thin lips. ‘I’m a dab hand at reading and writing, me mother saw to that, she’d been a governess afore she, well, fell down on her luck, and Mr Peters liked the way I knows how to keep my mouth shut.’

Jackman said nothing and after a moment Albert added, ‘Some of the stuff I do is confidential, like.’

Confidential, eh?