The Children of Silence (21 page)

Some months ago Ratty had supplied information that had helped to solve a murder for which Professor Pounder had briefly been a suspect, and Frances had rewarded the boy with a suit of clothes to replace the assortment of ill-fitting rags he usually wore. As far as she was aware he had only worn the suit once, when he was invited to a tea party hosted by Cedric Garton to celebrate Frances’ success and his sparring master’s freedom. Frances had assumed that the suit had gone to the pawnshop, but when Ratty arrived that morning he was wearing it, and she realised that, as the best article of clothing he had ever owned, he had been preserving it for a suitable occasion. The effect was a little curious since, being at the age when boys suddenly grow almost in front of one’s eyes, he was several inches taller than he had been only six months ago, and his clothes were too short both in the leg and body, revealing an unsavoury looking torn grey shirt underneath. He had made an attempt at washing his face but had not yet learnt that for completeness he should extend his efforts to reach his ears. A boy’s round hat was perched oddly on the side of his head.

‘Well, you are looking smart today,’ said Frances.

He struck a jaunty pose. ‘Bein’ a ’tective, I thort I should look like one! Won’ get no customers less I got the togs! ’N Tom is showin’ me ’bout letters an’ writin’ and all that kind ’v thing.’

‘Perhaps you should join the police force,’ Frances suggested. ‘You’ll soon be tall enough.’

He pulled a face. ‘Don’ like coppers, Miss. Never did, never will.’ He looked about him. ‘Any tea?’

‘There’s always tea,’ she reassured him, ‘and Sarah has made jam tarts.’

Ratty grinned.

Over tea and pastry Ratty reported that, as per Frances’ instructions, both the school for the deaf and Isaac Goodwin had been under close observation. No pupils boarded at the school, and most lived in Bayswater. A few arrived by carriage every weekday morning from further afield and were taken home the same way, and there was a family of three girls who were brought by a nursemaid and collected by her in the afternoon. Two small boys were taken to and from the school by a parent. None of these children ever conversed with Isaac Goodwin. There remained three boys aged between twelve and fifteen, two of whom were brothers, who lived near Porchester Gardens and walked from their homes to the school and back unaccompanied. During the luncheon period, they would sneak out of the school and dart into the nearby mews to engage in a very active conversation in sign language, and they conversed in the same manner all the way home.

Mr Eckley, who thought it beneath his dignity to go spying on his pupils himself, had occasionally emerged from the school and sauntered about the street in a manner that suggested he was looking for the supposed secret classes but was carefully trying not to appear to be doing so. He had a strutting manner of promenading and disdained to break into a run, which meant that the boys could easily evade him.

Frances fetched a street map and Ratty pointed out the narrow alley just around the corner from the school in Chepstow Crescent leading to the stables and coach houses of Pembridge Mews.

‘They din’t wanter be seen,’ reported Ratty. ‘They kep’ a sharp lookout in case anyone saw ’em. They saw me, orlright but I jus’ walked in and out like I ’ad bus’niss there and they took no mind ’v me ’n I went into a stable ’n watched ’em from in there. What’s wrong wiv all that hand langwidge any ’ow?’

‘Maybe nothing, but the school has banned it. I don’t intend to report the boys: that isn’t my concern. Did Mr Isaac Goodwin meet them?’

‘Yeh, las’ night, ’e did, ’n they all went inter the Mews t’ talk. It weren’t jus’ a normal talk, neither, ’e was very upset about somefin’, d’no what, ’v course.’

‘But it was just a conversation? He was not teaching them signs?’

‘Far as I c’d see they was jus’ talkin’ – well, silent talkin’ anyway. ’E kep’ doin’ this –’ Ratty demonstrated grasping his left wrist with two fingers uppermost and his thumb beneath, ‘then –’ Ratty made fists of both his hands and put one on top of the other.

Frances got the booklet Dr Goodwin had given her but she felt sure she understood. The second sign was, she already knew, the letter G and the first was like the action of a doctor in taking a pulse. The book confirmed it. Isaac had been making the signs for Dr Goodwin.

Ratty studied the pictures. ‘An’ this one!’ He stabbed the book with a grubby finger. The sign was for ‘teacher’.

Frances wondered what that could mean – was Isaac referring to Mr Eckley the headmaster or his own wish to teach? Presumably it was Frances’ recent visit and Mr Eckley’s threats that had upset him.

‘’E did this one, too,’ added Ratty making both his hands into claws and drawing them apart across his chest, almost like a monkey in the zoo scratching itself. ‘D’no what that is.’

Frances leafed through the book but could see nothing illustrated that might help her. ‘’N then ’e did this.’ Ratty put the thumbs and forefingers of both hands together and drew them apart in a curve, like opening a miniature curtain. ‘’N they did it back.’

‘How mysterious! I think you should continue to watch Mr Goodwin for another week at least. He may have discontinued teaching for the moment but start again when he thinks it is safe to do so.’ Frances secretly hoped that Isaac would provide her with nothing to suggest that he was likely to fall foul of Mr Eckley’s righteous wrath and the whole matter could be settled without any legal action.

While waiting for developments Frances addressed herself to her other cases and conducted an interview with a Mrs Lowy, who thankfully had nothing at all to do with skeletons.

Mrs Lowy was a lady of middle years, tastefully clad, although Frances observed that her gown was not the current season’s but last year’s; she had not, as a younger woman might have done, applied artful embellishments to make it seem new.

Frances happened to know that Mrs Lowy’s husband, Ferdinand, a purveyor of fine furnishings, was not as prosperous as he would like to appear. Chas and Barstie liked to drop the occasional private hint as to which businesses in Bayswater were experiencing difficulties and which individuals were struggling with debt, and Mr Lowy’s name had been mentioned several times recently. She wondered how much of this was known to his wife.

There were wives who took an interest in their husbands’ commercial life, providing sage advice and assistance, and others who might have done so had they been given the opportunity but were deliberately or thoughtlessly left in ignorance. Still others agreed with their husbands that trade was a man’s world and women were merely an unnecessary and distracting intrusion into a sphere of life for which they were not suited. Frances had seen more than one distraught victim who had known nothing of an approaching catastrophe before it descended upon her and her children like a thunderclap.

Had there been a subtle suggestion from Mr Lowy that his wife might like to delay ordering her new gown? There was a time when Frances would simply have observed and felt sympathy, allowing her mind to pass on to other matters, another’s private hardships not being her business. Now they were her business, and she took no comfort from the fact. Occasionally her enquiries had uncovered the hiding places of debtors and, more importantly, where they had concealed their funds. Most of the time, however, there was nothing to be done.

Mrs Lowy, Frances knew from local gossip, had a very specific problem, the theft of a valuable family heirloom, a necklace that had belonged to her grandmother. Her client explained that she had kept it in a jewel case on her dressing table and rarely wore it because it was rather ugly and unfashionable. Nevertheless she was upset at its disappearance, because of a purely sentimental attachment. Mrs Lowy brought a portrait showing her wearing the necklace and Frances could only agree, although she did not say so, that it was indeed ugly, with festoons of heavy chains, clusters of jewels like overblown flowers and a central pendant with a cameo of a fierce looking man and his supercilious wife.

‘It is – a very distinctive piece.’

‘It is,’ said Mrs Lowy. ‘No one could sell it as it is or even pawn it without attracting attention. Any thief would have to break it up and sell the stones. I would be so upset if that was to happen. And the cameo – my grandparents’ portrait – will I ever see it again?’

‘The jewel box was unlocked?’

‘Yes, I suppose that was careless of me but I never imagined anyone would steal it. My maid has been with me for twenty-five years and is a thoroughly good woman. The housemaid was on her half-day holiday the day it went missing. The only other person who ever enters the room is Ferdinand.’

‘Is the necklace insured?’ asked Frances, although she could predict the answer.

‘Oh yes, for far more than any thief could make from it, but I don’t care about the money, I just want the necklace,’ she finished plaintively.

‘And you shall have it,’ said Frances confidently. ‘I am often asked to find stolen jewellery and on many occasions I have found that it was not stolen at all but simply mislaid. Sometimes it has simply been moved to another place in order for it to be cleaned or valued or matched with a gown.’

‘I am sure I did not move it, and no one in the house admits having done so,’ protested Mrs Lowy.

Frances smiled in a manner she hoped would calm and reassure her client. ‘Nevertheless, a busy person can so easily forget these things. You would be surprised at how often it happens. I am sure that you have looked everywhere for it, but I have an associate, a Miss Smith, who is an expert at finding things that are lost. This is what we will do. Miss Smith will visit you this very evening and she will undertake a thorough search. Will your husband be at home?’

‘Yes, he returns at seven and dines at eight.’

‘Then it is essential that you make sure he knows the instant he returns that Miss Smith will be at your house promptly at nine to look for the necklace. I would not want him to be alarmed.’

Mrs Lowy looked surprised, but she agreed.

Frances called on Tom and explained that she wanted one of his ‘men’ to wait outside Mr and Mrs Lowy’s home and when Mr Lowy returned from his office, to see if he went out again, follow him to his destination and then report to her at once.

‘What you wanted to know about them houses up at Queens Road,’ said Tom. ‘Locked up and boarded tight ever since they were sold. Only opened up to let the workmen go in. Mr Whiteley’s not a gent to let the grass grow. Lots ’v argyments about the hoardings as they was too high. Vestry wanted ’em taken down; Mr Whiteley took no notice; big palaver.’

‘Might someone have been able to climb in?’

‘Not less he was a monkey with arms six foot long and hands on the end of his legs.’

Frances thought that Mr Poe might have made something of that, but she was certain that there was no escaped orang-utan in Bayswater or she would have been asked to look for it.

‘Was one thing, though,’ added Tom. ‘Someone did try and break in a few months ago, only they didn’t get nowhere. I mean they pulled some of the boards apart, but there was only about enough space for a cat to get in, or someone very thin if they wriggled a bit.’