Crockett hadn't been able to rid himself of the idea that the name and address found in the Gladstone bag (which the Saroyan brothers had now positively identified as belonging to Rosa Tartaryan) was important to the investigation and the discovery of her killer. As a result of the brothers' visit, he had written hopefully once more to the Crowthers in Yorkshire â a shot in the dark, this, but one which had paid off, for one of the family now proposed to visit him. An early date and time were suggested, and promptly on time on the day specified, word was sent in to him as he sat in the busy CID office that a Mr Edward Crowther was there to see him. He asked for the visitor to be shown into an interviewing room and joined him there immediately.
“Ned Crowther,” the tall, bronzed young man announced himself heartily, extending a large hand in answer to Crockett's greeting. “I'm very pleased to meet you, Chief Inspector.”
“Please be seated, Mr Crowther. It's very good of you to come all this way.”
“Not in the least. Only too glad to be of service. Came as soon as I could.” He went on to say that he had only recently arrived home from South Africa, where he and his brother-in-law, Mr Lyall Armitage, ran an import and export company. “I came over to attend to the London end of our business, but when I've done that, I've made up my mind to cut my losses, and stay here for good. Fought out there in the Boer War,” he went on to explain, “and when it was over, in ninety-two, I liked the country so much I decided to stay. Capital life out there, wonderful opportunities. I've no complaints, but the fact is, the climate don't suit my health â subject to bouts of malaria, you know. Weakens the constitution in the end. I've been told I should leave Africa. It's a blow, I'll admit, but the old country still has a lot to offer. As to this other business, I don't know if I'll be setting you up on a wild goose chase or not, but â”
“Mr Crowther, I regret we've had to trouble your family again â but if there's any information at all you can give, I assure you
I shall be in your debt,” said Crockett with heartfelt truth.
“No trouble at all. In fact the help may be in the other direction. Our name and address in that murdered woman's bag â rum do, that, whichever way you look at it, ain't it?”
“True enough. And you've no idea how or why it might have been there?”
“If you hoped I'd be able to explain that, I'm sorry to disappoint you. But when my parents told me the story, I put certain facts together and came up with something which may help to put you on the right track.” He paused, and then said, his pleasant face suddenly tight and anxious, “It's certain that this woman â the one who's been murdered â was a foreigner?”
“Yes. We're positive now that she was an Armenian, by the name of Rosa Tartaryan.”
“Ah.” He heaved a sigh of deep relief. “Well, that's it then. No connection with my family â not obviously so, that is. But as to the other name you gave us â the one you say this Rosa worked for, the one you want to trace. Well now, it came to me right away that you might have the answer to a mystery that's been troubling our family for some time. Long shot, I'll grant, but I suppose you're willing to try anything? I should be, in your shoes.”
Crockett indicated that indeed he was.
“Well, it goes back a way, so if you'll bear with me? There was a young woman who was very close to us all, orphan daughter of friends of my family. Lived with us for many years. I was â we were all extremely fond of Hannah â she was like one of the family.”
“Hannah â Smith?”
“No. Her name was Jackson. But she was certainly called Hannah. Hannah Mary Jackson.” He smiled slightly, as if amused by some secret thought. “It was like this. My only sister, Lydia, married Lyall Armitage, the good fellow who's now my business partner, and went out to South Africa with him. Later Hannah went out to join her. It was only ever intended to be a to be a brief visit, but it was extended for one reason and another, and then in the end she met a man out there â a Major Hugh Osborne â and married him.”
“Where is she now?”
“Ah, that I wish we knew, Mr Crockett, upon my word I do. She returned to England â alone, I believe, but never went back to Bridge End. She wrote that for many reasons it was better she shouldn't return. What my mother thought it was, you see â m' brother George and his family had recently moved in with the parents. Sensible idea. Bridge End is a big house, built as a family dwelling, and it needs a big, growing family like George's to fill it. Plenty of room for them all, and the old folk delight in having their grandchildren around them â but my mother got the idea Hannah might not like the idea of sharing a house with George's wife. Capital woman, Nellie, cheerful and all that, great organiser â of things and people. But she and Hannah â chalk and cheese. Anyway, damned if we haven't heard a word from Hannah since then. Just the odd card at Christmas, and birthdays, saying she was well and hoped we all were. Not like Hannah, that, not a bit.”
“Tell me. Where did she live, in South Africa?”
“In Mafeking. I suppose you've heard of Mafeking?”
“Who has not?” It was nearly seven years since the war with the Boers had ended, and nigh on a decade since the name of the small heroic frontier town on the South African veld had been on the lips of every man, woman and child in England, but who indeed could have forgotten it?
Crockett's thoughts were racing. It surely wasn't too much to believe that here at last were the connections he needed to confirm his suspicions. The woman who had worked for Hannah Smith had been murdered on the Chetwynd family estate. Harry Chetwynd had been a war correspondent in Mafeking at the same time as a woman called Hannah ⦠Osborne as they might have to learn to call her. Both had been in the omnibus accident.
“I don't know how what you've told us is going to help, Mr Crowther, but I thank you for coming to us. Don't get your hopes up, but I think this Mrs Hannah Smith we've been trying to trace may possibly â just possibly, mind you â be the Hannah Osborne you're looking for. If you'll give me a few details about her last address and so on, I'd appreciate it.”
“You won't get much out of that. Old George had a go for my
mother's sake â tried to trace her through the girls' old governess, a Miss Rhoda Rouncewell, who'd just returned from America and was teaching at a college in Surrey. Found poor Rouncey had died, and no trace of Hannah.”
“We'll have to try some other way, then. We'd very much like to find her. Give me a few more details of Miss Rouncewell.”
“I'd very much like to find my dear Hannah on my own account,” Ned said quietly. “Understand what I mean?”
Â
Sebastian, confounded by the information Sylvia had given him, discovered an urgent need to confer with Louisa, and that same afternoon, he drove his car to the Medical School where she was studying. His request to speak to her received a frosty reception from the dragon presiding over a desk in the front hall, who obviously saw the task of overseeing the hundred or so independently-minded young women in her charge as the cross she had to bear. “I'm sorry, Miss Fox is not in.”
“Do you know when she's expected back?”
She was bound to know. He'd had it from Louisa that the students were required to sign in and out at stated times, but clearly, the lady was not going to budge an inch, even to this well mannered young man. “No,” she stated, determined not to be thawed by a charming smile.
Sebastian could be equally stubborn. He was not about to give in so easily, either, and was settling down to pursue the matter to a satisfactory conclusion when a young woman in a fashionably cut coat and skirt and a rather fetching hat touched him on the shoulder. Ignoring the dragon's glare, she asked, “You're looking for Louisa? She's working on the wards, but she should be finishing any time now. I'm on my way to the hospital to take her place.”
This modish young lady looked even less like his idea of an earnest medical student than Louisa did, but the truism that all bluestockings must be frights no longer seemed to apply. Some of the cleverest women around nowadays appeared determined to prove this. “Do you know where to find her?” she asked.
“I think so.” The hospital to which she referred was the Royal Free, where the women medical students at the school here were allowed to gain their practical clinical instruction on the wards.
“But since you're going there too, may I not drive you?” he asked, indicating the Ascot which was drawn up to the kerb outside.
“Oh, I say, would you?” She had huge brown eyes and thick eyelashes which she could, and did, use to good effect, and a pretty, dimpled smile.
“Miss Winslow!”
“It's all right, Miss Madeley, this gentleman is a friend of my brother's.” It was undoubtedly a wink Miss Winslow gave him, before flashing her dimples at the dragon, sauntering out and whisking herself into the Ascot with an aplomb that indicated she was no stranger to young men's motorcars.
She chattered non-stop from Hunter Street to the Grays Inn Road. By the time Sebastian stopped the engine, he had learned she was in her third year of study, how tremendously she admired the school's founder, Sophie Jex-Blake, that her father was an Irish landowner and she should have come out two seasons ago had she not nagged him into letting her study to become a doctor. “My mother isn't speaking to me over it. Too tedious. But learning to be a doctor is so much more fun,” she said, flirting from under her eyelashes. Sebastian laughed. He was sure she would enjoy nothing better than to dance the night away.
A little later, climbing into the seat Miss Winslow had vacated, Louisa said, “Oh, Cynthia! Half the doctors in the hospital are in love with her â and she with them. She's the star of our year, you know. She'll walk away with all the honours, if she doesn't get herself put in prison too often. She chained herself to the railings at No. 10 last year â that was when her father realised there was no doing anything with her and gave up trying to persuade her to quit her studies and become a young lady. What are you doing here?”
“We have something to talk about. Let me take your books.” They were in a satchel which she had slung over her shoulder. She wore a very short sealskin jacket, and he hoped its little rabbit fur collar made it warmer for the raw day than it appeared capable of doing. He thought she looked pale and as though she wasn't getting enough to eat, though this was unlikely; Louisa
had a hearty appetite. She was probably working too hard. But the unaccustomed look of fragility brought out his protective instincts and he suggested they might find a teashop where they might have poached eggs on toast. Oh dear, she was very sorry, but she had arranged to meet someone else for tea. Yet another of her suffragette friends, he thought with a resigned sigh, registering that she sounded slightly evasive, for Louisa. But he thought it wiser to say nothing.
“Well then, let's talk here. Or would you rather drive around?”
“Let's stay where we are.”
He reached behind the seat and pulled out a warm plaid rug which he draped over her knees. “The police have found the identity of the murdered woman, Louisa,” he said abruptly. “She was an Armenian, by the name of Rosa Tartaryan.”
“An Armenian? Oh.” She digested this. “Does that mean she wasn't Harry's mistress, after all?”
“Probably. I've been speaking to Sylvia, and she didn't seem to think she was. But â that's not the least of it.” The full story of his visit to his sister was soon related. He didn't feel this was the time for finesse, and told her plainly what it was he had learned.
She looked appalled. “Poor child,” she said softly, “poor mother. Well, if Sylvia knows all this, she must know where they are to be found.”
“She swears she doesn't, that Harry never told her anything more than the bare facts. I don't think I believe her, but I can't force her to tell. But if she's wrong, and this Rosa Tartaryan was his mistress â there's nothing to say she wasn't, just because she wasn't English â that means the child is alone now. Someone must be looking after him, but I do rather think that as a family we have a bounden duty to do something for him, especially if the boy is ⦠defective in his mind.”
“How like you, Seb.” Her eyes were suspiciously bright as she touched his sleeve. And it was at that moment, when he saw her little gloved hand trembling very slightly against the smooth broadcloth of his overcoat, that he thought she might be willing to love him, too. But, though she answered his look with heightened colour, he nonetheless knew this wasn't the time. Not usually a man to miss an opportunity, he knew now that he must
wait â but with rather more hope in his heart than heretofore.
“The police should know what happened to him, after the accident,” she went on, “and we don't know what else they may have found out about Rosa Tartaryan, either.”
“That's true.” Sebastian considered. “I'll go and see Crockett tomorrow â though I doubt whether he'll tell me much. Struck me as a man who plays his cards very close to his chest.”