The Children of Silence (39 page)

‘The truth? How hard a commodity that is to come by.’

‘We sometimes conceal it for the best of intentions, and then it comes back twisted by time and circumstance.’

Frances hesitated. ‘I know you have been asked this before, and please forgive me for asking again, but I feel you are about to be open with me at last. Is Isaac your natural son?’

‘No, he is not related to me by blood, but he is the son of a respectable person I cannot name. Soon after his birth I placed him with a good family who wanted a child, and he was well looked after, but when he was seven his foster parents died within a week or two of each other, the father in an accident and his wife after suffering a fit. There was no one to care for him. When I discovered his situation I adopted him. To anyone who asked I said that I had found him in the street, as I did not wish his actual parentage to become known.’

‘If there is no crime involved then I doubt the police would be interested,’ Frances reassured him. ‘I am of course naturally curious, but if it has no relevance to any wrongdoing I will not enquire further.’

‘I do not think revealing what I know would assist anyone.’ His face was hard and shadowed with despair, and Frances felt sure that the truth had once again slipped away from her.

The Inspector appeared, followed by Isaac Goodwin, who was being comforted by a lady teacher and escorted by a constable. Dr Goodwin immediately leaped up and ran to him. The constable looked worried and was about to intervene but Sharrock waved him back and permitted father and son to embrace and wipe away each other’s tears. There was a quick conversation in sign language, then Goodwin turned to the Inspector with an expression of horror.

‘You are charging him with murder? How can that be?’

‘No choice in the matter,’ said the Inspector, ‘and I’ve asked Dr Bond to have another look at the bones. Come into the office and I’ll explain.’

Goodwin signed what Frances was able to recognise was his grateful thanks to the lady teacher, who patted his arm sympathetically before he followed Sharrock to his office. Isaac, with a look of heartfelt appeal in his eyes, was taken to the cells. ‘Inspector, I wish to engage Miss Doughty to look into the matter and insist that she is present at our conversation,’ declared Goodwin. ‘One of us must have a clear mind to apply to the matter and I am afraid that today, under these terrible circumstances, it cannot be myself.’

‘As you wish,’ shrugged Sharrock. Once in his office he flung himself into his chair with an expression of extreme regret. ‘Young Mr Goodwin is a better class of person than we usually have in here, and if it wasn’t for all this business he’d be a credit to you.’

‘He is, and will always be, a credit to me. But why do you believe him to be guilty of a terrible crime? There must be a mistake! What motive could he have to kill this man? He knew nothing of the fellow’s threats against me.’

‘I’m afraid that isn’t the case. We have interviewed the schoolboys who have admitted that they hid the bones on your son’s behalf. It turned out that the victim was unwise enough to repeat his threats against you as he was leaving the school, and some of the boys were nearby. He made the mistake of assuming that as they were deaf they could not understand the conversation. In fact they could, as one of them can hear a little and they can all read speech by looking at the shape of the speaker’s mouth. I don’t know how they do it, I’ve tried but it’s beyond me.’

A memory arose and flitted across Goodwin’s features. ‘I remember now. I thought I heard footsteps behind me, but when I turned around no one was there. Sometimes …’ He held a hand to his head. ‘Sometimes it is hard to tell if the noise is from inside or out.’

‘The boys think a lot of you, and they didn’t want any harm to come to you or the school, so they went and told your son what they knew. So you see, when the man came for his second visit Mr Goodwin was very well aware that he had been blackmailing you.’

‘But murder? You think him capable of that?’

‘It’s not what I think, Dr Goodwin. It’s gone beyond that now.’

‘I assume he has told you it was an accident.’

‘Yes, he says he asked the man to wait in the visitors’ room but he took the wrong door. Seems like a weak explanation to me.’

Frances decided to offer a suggestion. ‘Perhaps he tried to trap the man in the cellar so he could call the police and have him arrested, which is a very commendable thing to do, but the man had a bad leg and stumbled and fell.’

‘If he changes his story I’ll let you know,’ Sharrock grunted, ‘but juries don’t like it when the accused does that. It shows him to be a liar, and which story are they to believe? The first one, the second one, or neither?’

That, Frances was obliged to acknowledge, was very true. A change of tale was usually no more than the desperate attempt of a guilty person to escape justice by any means available.

Sharrock leaned forward. ‘Dr Goodwin, did you ever wonder why the blackmailer never returned?’

‘Naturally. He told me at the first visit that he would allow me some time to consider my position and accumulate the money he wanted and then he would come back. When I did not see him again I assumed that he had been arrested for some other crime. Ever since then it has been a constant worry to me that he might reappear.’

‘Well, he won’t do that now. And what about Mrs Antrobus? What did she think of it all?’

‘This is nothing to do with Mrs Antrobus,’ said Goodwin brusquely. ‘I know the criminal sought to imply that I would do these terrible things because of some fancied connection, but there was no such connection.’

‘But she was also accused, wasn’t she?’

‘Mrs Antrobus?’ queried Frances, glancing at Goodwin.

‘Wild foolish allegations, based on speculation. Really, these rumours about my private life are disgusting and intolerable.’

Sharrock looked unconvinced. ‘Yes, the boys said that the visitor accused Dr Goodwin of murdering Mr Edwin Antrobus not so much for the sake of his wife but at her very specific request.’

‘You can attach no importance to statements of that kind,’ snapped Goodwin, flushing with anger. ‘The man was a criminal and would say whatever he wanted in order to extract money from me. Why should I consent to such a thing, a thing quite against my nature, for someone who was no more than a patient?’

‘He thought there was more.’

‘I cannot help what he thought. He was wrong.’ Goodwin rose. ‘I have suffered these attacks on my good name for too long! Until now I have treated them with the silent contempt they deserve, but this cannot be permitted to continue. I will consult my solicitor at once, and you may expect a visit from him very soon.’

Goodwin was fuming as he left the station, but as Frances joined him in a cab home she was thoughtful. ‘I believe that the blackmailer, whoever he was, is the same man who was seen in the company of Mr Antrobus at Bristol station. He was later seen with some of the missing man’s property. I think he murdered Mr Antrobus but profited very little from his crime. Perhaps he imagined Mr Antrobus carried large sums of money on his person and was disappointed to find that he did not. So he tried to make further gains by using the rumours that have been circulating in Bayswater in order to blackmail you. He may have thought that if he made enough accusations then one of them would strike home.’

‘He was mistaken. I have committed no crime and neither has my son.’

‘Do you actually wish me to make enquiries concerning the deceased? Or was my name merely conjured to strike terror into the Inspector’s heart?’

‘Please do whatever you can. I have devoted a great deal of time to thinking about that unpleasant fellow, his appearance and his manner, and I can think of nothing that might help you other than what I have already said.’

Frances did at last have an explanation for something that had been puzzling her for some time. If Edwin Antrobus had been murdered by someone who had hoped to profit under his will, such as his brother Lionel or his partner Mr Luckhurst, then the murderer, impatient for his reward, would have taken steps to ensure that the body was found. Although Mrs Antrobus did very badly under the will, it was to her advantage to have her husband’s death proved to enable her to challenge it. Any of those three people, had they been involved in the murder, would by now have found some way of making sure that the body was discovered, but clearly none of them had so much as attempted to do so. The mystery man, however, was a simple thief, with no interest in the will, and it had mattered nothing to him whether the body was found or not. Unfortunately, the location of Edwin Antrobus’ remains was most probably known only to the man whose bones had been found in the brickyard.

With that question settled, many others remained unanswered, and there was something at the back of Frances’ mind, something that Mrs Fisher had said to her, which was troubling, but she couldn’t think what it was.

N
ext morning, Frances was back at the
Chronicle
offices, working on Mr Candy’s new commission to discover if an applicant for assistance had, as it was rumoured, previously attempted a fraud on another charity.

While there she decided to examine the newspapers for the summer of 1875 to see what article the Antrobus’ parlourmaid, Lizzie, said had so distressed her mistress. Frances spent an hour reading closely every issue for June and July but saw nothing that could have had such an effect. Neither Mrs Antrobus’ cousin nor anyone with whom she might have been connected had been imprisoned at that time, and there was no other item of news that might have upset her. Frances extended her search to May and August, since Lizzie’s memory might have been at fault as to the month, but without result. She decided instead to try June and July of 1876, and she found it almost at once. In the last week of June, Robert Barfield, who sometimes went by the name John Roberts, also the soubriquet ‘Spring-heeled Bob’ because of his agility, had attempted to escape from prison, where he had been serving a term for theft. He had scaled a high wall but suffered a heavy fall onto some stones, and he had been taken to the prison infirmary with a badly shattered leg. He was expected to live, but his career as a window man was over.

When Frances came home, she took all her notes and spread them out over the table like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. They connected, she was sure, but the things that would link them were contained in secret conversations and meetings, what was believed or not believed and, in some cases, her own assumptions and suppositions. She knew that Edwin Antrobus was dead, she knew that he had been murdered and by whom and in all probability why. She was unable, however, to prove any of it. One important piece of clarification could, however, be supplied by the missing man’s widow.

Harriett Antrobus was delighted to see Frances; her features glowed with happiness and the light in her eyes testified to the compelling charm she must have exerted in her youth. ‘My dear, dear Miss Doughty,’ she breathed, ‘what a pleasure it is that we are soon to be related! Please do call me Harriett and permit me to anticipate our connection by addressing you as Frances. What joy your uncle has conferred on dear Charlotte, and how well she deserves it!’

Frances sat with her future aunt and broached a difficult subject. ‘I do hope that we may be very close in future, and to that end, I must implore you that there should be no secrets between us. Indeed, it is well known that sisters, or ladies who are affectionate friends and think of themselves as sisters, hide nothing from each other.’ She felt a little stab of guilt as she said that, since she had imagined for some time that she had successfully concealed from Sarah the fact that she had been having nightmares. Her confession to Sarah, the appearance in her dreams of a shadowy rescuer and long energetic walks had at last consigned those terrors to the past.

‘Why, whatever can you mean?’ wondered Harriett, more amused than disturbed by the question. ‘If there is something you wish to know, do by all means ask, and I promise to tell you everything.’

‘I beg you not to be offended, but I think there are matters best resolved as soon as possible so that we may put all doubts behind us.’

‘You have quite alarmed me, Frances,’ teased Harriett with a friendly smile. ‘But it is most intriguing too, and I am eager to discover what this is about.’

‘Are you willing to admit to me that you asked Mr Wylie to lie at the inquest on your behalf so that the bones found in Queens Road would be identified as those of your husband?’

‘Oh dear!’ said Harriett with a soft little laugh. ‘I am not at all offended, I do know that you must ask these difficult questions, and I agree that it is best to put an end to all doubts on this matter now. You will no doubt think me a very wicked woman, but I suppose, yes, I did suggest to him what he might say. After the terrible disappointment of losing the court case over the remains found in the canal, I thought this might be my last chance of setting my affairs straight. There – I have confessed my sin, and I am sorry for it. But I did it from desperation, in the hope of at last freeing myself from Lionel’s clutches. Can you forgive me?’