Elementary Murder Read online

  ‘You clean the cells with borax, Detective Sergeant?’

  ‘Not personally, sir.’

  ‘It kills vermin, you know. I would have thought you’d be putting the miscreants at risk, eh? Can’t have the devils dropping dead willy-nilly, eh, Sergeant?’

  ‘Indeed not, sir.’

  Oh how he had laughed at the inspector’s droll humour.

  He blinked himself back to the present and jotted a few points down.

  ‘You had no further conversation with Miss Gadsworth?’

  ‘No, sir. I was back in the classroom an’ taught all afternoon. Saw her at the end of school though back here in the staffroom, but I didn’t get the chance to speak to her then.’

  He thanked the girl and she left with what Constable Jaggery thought was an unnecessary curtsy.

  ‘It’s all my fault, Sergeant Brennan. Absolutely.’

  The woman sitting before him – Miss Jane Rodley – was in her late twenties, early thirties, Brennan guessed. Unlike the pupil-teacher who had just left, this seemed to be a much more confident and able member of the profession. Her white blouse, set off by a black and white cameo brooch pin at the neck, gave her an aura of modesty and competence, and he could well imagine her commanding respect and even devotion from the Standard 6 pupils in her charge. She was also something of a looker, too, he reflected. Her dark brown hair immaculately pinned back, penetrating green eyes and a firm, rounded mouth, he was hardly surprised that she should now be engaged to be married, and to the vicar too. She’d be a great asset to his parish work.

  ‘And how do you work that out, Miss Rodley?’

  She thought for a few moments. ‘If I hadn’t been leaving, then the poor girl wouldn’t be here in the first place.’

  ‘That’s hardly …’

  ‘And in the second place, after her fainting spell I should have consoled her far more than I did. Than we all did. Mr Weston seemed to be more concerned about the impression we made on Mr Tollet, the inspector, than the welfare of Miss Gadsworth.’

  ‘But she recovered quickly, did she not?’

  ‘She did. I’m ashamed to say Mr Tollet showed her more concern and tenderness than any of us.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘He acted with commendable speed. Issuing orders to have her laid quite flat on the floor. Asking me to expose her neck and chest as much as was seemly. Opening the windows, that sort of thing. He even asked if we had any chloric ether in the school, but of course we have nothing of the sort here.’

  ‘He seems remarkably well-versed in medical emergencies,’ Brennan observed.

  Miss Rodley smiled. ‘Afterwards, he appeared to be quite embarrassed by his actions. Said he had made common ailments a particular study. A hobby, I suppose. At any rate he appeared to have succeeded in bringing Miss Gadsworth round. He took her into a corner of the room and spoke very gently to her. She seemed very anxious to reassure him she was fine.’

  Brennan thought for a moment, then asked, ‘Your conversations with Miss Gadsworth? What was she like?’

  ‘I liked her. She spoke of her excitement at the possibility of working at George Street. She’d done some preliminary teaching in Salford and I gather the extreme poverty she came across there had not only appalled her but fired her enthusiasm for doing good.’ She paused and gave a half-smile. ‘This would have been her first appointment, you see, and any post would feel like that. I felt much the same way five years ago. She’d eventually find her enthusiasm tempered a little by experience, but not much. It’s a wonderfully rewarding job, Sergeant, despite the challenges set daily by our little charges.’

  ‘Would you say her enthusiasm was so great that a disappointing outcome to the day might … discourage her deeply?’

  ‘Make her kill herself, you mean?’

  Brennan gave a nod of acknowledgement. This was a woman who spoke plainly. Perhaps she might have to temper that when she becomes the vicar’s wife.

  She thought for a while. ‘I can’t really judge. She was excited, not excitable. But I didn’t speak with her after she was given the verdict by my … by Reverend Pearl and the headmaster, so I can’t say how she took it. I’m sure she was bitterly disappointed. She had been looking forward to working here so much. I just wish I could have spent some time with her afterwards, given her words of encouragement. But I never saw her again. Until this morning …’

  Her voice tapered off into sombre reflection, and Brennan allowed her a few moments.

  ‘I gather you are engaged to be married? To Reverend Pearl?’

  She flushed. ‘Yes. Next June. You know my fiancé?’

  ‘Not personally, no. He’s vicar at St Catharine’s in Scholes, I gather.’

  ‘Yes.’ She noticed the trace of a smile on his face. ‘The church with the crooked spire, before you mention it.’

  He nodded. Many people knew the reason for the leaning spire at St Catharine’s. The church was built on land riddled with coal mines, and around thirty years ago there had been major subsidence, causing damage to the church’s west wing. His father – a bricklayer – had told him the story of how local collieries with workings beneath the church contributed to its repair, and how his father himself had worked on repairing the building. He even recalled the joke he’d repeat when drunk:

  Sure I expected any minute to be struck be a bolt o’ lightnin’, Michael, me helpin’ to fix a protestant church with each brick a mortal sin. Or a mortar sin, eh, son!

  ‘It will be necessary for me to speak with him at some point. I gather he has parish work to carry out.’

  ‘I shall be seeing him later. There’s a meeting to discuss his forthcoming series of lectures on a range of topics. He believes firmly in the benefits of an education that doesn’t stop at the school gates. Then he has choir practice. You can see him any time after that.’

  ‘Very laudable.’ Brennan wondered what the uptake for the lectures would be in Scholes, not the most enthusiastic area of Wigan when it came to stimulating the mind. Stimulations of another kind altogether were more in their line.

  ‘Perhaps if you came along after seven tonight. You know of course where Lorne Street is?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He knew every street, every yard, and every alleyway in the Scholes district. Hadn’t he scoured the place only last year during the miners’ strike, and the murder of Arthur Morris, the most hated of the colliery owners?

  ‘Then if you’ll be so kind as to forewarn him of my attendance?’

  She smiled. ‘Be careful, Sergeant. My fiancé can be quite persuasive. He might well draft you in as a guest speaker on the causes of crime.’

  Her eyes flashed with humour, and once again he could well imagine how the good vicar had been struck by her beauty.

  Lucky beggar, he thought, then felt an immediate stab of guilt as he pictured his Ellen stirring a pot of stew and wondering where on earth he’d got to.

  It was a source of wonder to many of their neighbours in Diggle Street how Edith Kelly had managed to stay alive. She was a few inches over five feet tall, with thin, shrewish features and narrow bony arms. There was steel in her eyes, though – Mrs Arbuthnot a few doors down had once joked that she got that look from her husband Tommy who must have brought home some shavings from the rolling mill and shoved them in her eyes.

  If her glare was sharp, then her tongue was sharper, as more than one of the neighbours had found out to their cost. She had a way of cutting them down with her bitter words, and if they didn’t work she always had her poker, which she often brought out to settle street disputes.

  But her Tommy was a big bugger. His red hair – which his only son Billy had inherited – only served to enhance his reputation for a fiery temper, and surely to God, the neighbours reasoned, he could swat her away with one sweep of his huge arms as soon as she started on him, which she did on a regular basis. And yet she not only lived but ruled.

  Tommy Kelly might hammer the living daylights out of any man in any pu
b in Springfield or even up Scholes on the other side of town for that matter where the real hard men lived, but when it came to facing down his beloved wife it was an entirely different tale.

  So when they heard yelling from inside number 23 at teatime, apart from the odd sniff and raised eyebrow, the conversations on the street went on as normal. Those with husbands who hadn’t yet come home took the opportunity to have a last minute chat, each woman leaning against her own doorway in case his lordship should happen to appear suddenly from the direction of the union workhouse which dominated the area and which they all shunned like the plague.

  Inside number 23, however, the atmosphere was far less conducive to either idle or meaningful conversation.

  ‘Don’t slouch there like an overfed pig, get off thi backside an’ get out lookin’.’

  Tommy looked at the welcoming glow of the coal fire, felt its warmth tingle his stockinged feet.‘’E’ll come back when ’e’s ready. When ’e’s clemmed.’

  ‘Bound to be bloody well clemmed if ’e’s not eaten since Friday night. Summat might’ve ’appened to ’im. An’ that lot out there are beginnin’ to talk.’

  ‘Bloody hellfire!’ Tommy cursed and spat onto the coals, watching his phlegm sizzle on the grey coating of ash. ‘I’ll go, woman. But if I see the little bugger I’ll tan his arse. Upsettin’ us like this.’

  Nathaniel Edgar was the teacher in charge of Standard 5. He sat before Brennan with one leg crossed over the other and his hands resting gently on the desk between them. With his dark well-groomed hair, he was quite handsome in a rugged kind of way, with well-formed cheekbones that were accentuated by his clean-shaven appearance. As the interview moved along, Brennan noticed the expression in his eyes alternate between wry amusement, aloofness and the occasional flicker of melancholy.

  ‘Yes,’ he began in answer to the detective’s question, ‘I spoke with Miss Gadsworth.’

  ‘Can you recall any details from your chat?’

  He uncrossed his legs and leant forward. ‘I remember she was very excited about the day itself. This was her first interview and she wanted to acquit herself well.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘She told me she’d be the first teacher in her family. Her father owns a pharmacy in Bolton, I believe, and has encouraged her most keenly to join our profession.’

  Pharmacy, thought Brennan. Interesting.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘She spoke about how she had enjoyed her training at Manchester. How she felt a curious closeness with the children she taught over there while on practice.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Ah, yes. She felt close to them because of the poverty they endured. She actually started to tell me one tale about a child she’d taught in Salford who lived in the most appalling of hovels and who came to school with maggots actually crawling out of her hair. I could almost detect tears in her eyes as she spoke. But then Mr Weston came in with the inspector and the vicar and she fell silent.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Seemed to me she was the sort of girl – woman – who is intimidated by authority. It can be a hindrance in our profession, Sergeant. One minute you’re ruling the roost – or should be – in the classroom, the next minute you’re tongue-tied in the presence of such figures.’

  ‘But when the headmaster came into the staffroom with the others, Miss Gadsworth had already met him, hadn’t she? Mr Weston, I mean.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Is he – as you say – intimidating?’

  He shrugged. ‘Not to me, no. I know what lies behind the mask. But to someone just starting off …’

  ‘What do you mean, you know what lies behind the mask?’

  For the first time the man’s confidence faltered.

  ‘Just an expression, Sergeant. I mean, don’t we all have masks of some sort?’

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘Again, in our profession we have to adopt certain roles – fierce upholders of discipline, gentle words of encouragement … you know the sort of thing. You also need a broad back.’

  He felt the need to dig a little further.

  ‘But what exactly does Mr Weston have lurking beneath his mask?’

  Nathaniel Edgar crossed his legs once more and gave a superior smile. ‘Generosity of spirit, Sergeant. A strict disciplinarian on the one hand, and a conscientious mentor on the other.’

  ‘Mentor? You mean with the pupil-teacher, Miss Mason?’

  Edgar nodded. ‘Sometimes he hides that generosity well, but it’s there nevertheless. He’s most assiduous in helping young Emily get the start in life she deserves.’

  ‘So. When Mr Weston entered the staffroom with the inspector and the vicar, Miss Gadsworth dried up?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did she tell you anything else? Before they came in? Or after, for that matter.’

  ‘No. Our conversation lasted no longer than ten minutes. We spoke about the usual things of course – the weather, the children, what Wigan is like – that sort of thing. But as for anything personal, no. I’m afraid that’s it.’

  ‘You were actually present when she fainted, I gather?’

  ‘Yes. I suppose I’d seen it coming.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, she looked rather pale – not flushed with enthusiasm as much as that morning. I’d heard about the awkwardness she’d faced in lesson. It must have had more of an effect on her than we thought. At any rate, she was quite subdued and then when Mr Weston and the good reverend came through the door with the school inspector … She seemed to mutter something, but I couldn’t really tell what she said. I was too busy catching the poor girl.’

  ‘Try.’

  Edgar thought for a moment. ‘Well, I’m not sure, you understand, but it sounded something like, Of course … Let’s wait …’

  ‘Let’s wait?’

  ‘I know. It sounds meaningless, really. Perhaps it’s the sort of gibberish one says when swooning.’

  ‘I see. Well, thank you Mr Edgar. That’s been most helpful.’

  Brennan gave a sigh. Couple of little snippets to go on, but not much there, he thought as Nathaniel Edgar left the room. Not much at all.

  Brennan sat opposite Miss Alice Walsh and registered at once the woman’s defiant gaze. She was very pretty, he observed, although that was muted somewhat by the suggestion of hostility in the way she regarded him. It was almost as if she were daring him to find her attractive. Nevertheless, with her dark hair, dimpled cheeks and absorbing brown eyes she did exude an appeal that many would find alluring. He had a fleeting memory of his old teachers, and the comparison with what he’d seen today did them no favours.

  ‘Miss Walsh, you’re in charge of Standard 3, I gather?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Just a few questions, miss, about last Friday.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Did you have any conversation with Miss Gadsworth at any time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Brennan let a sigh creep out. He said slowly, ‘And can you tell me what your conversation was about?’

  Miss Walsh pursed her lips. ‘You,’ she said simply.

  Brennan looked shocked. ‘I beg your pardon? You talked about me?’

  ‘About men in general,’ she explained. ‘Miss Gadsworth told me she’d done her training in Manchester and I asked her if she had been to any political meetings.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it is in Manchester that Emmeline Pankhurst lives. I wondered if she has met her, as I have. She has established a branch of the Independent Labour Party there. More importantly she formed the Women’s Franchise League. You’re familiar with the suffrage movement, Detective Brennan?’

  Brennan found his seat a trifle uncomfortable. This woman was fast turning the tables on him and he needed to restore the natural order of things.

  ‘So you discussed women being given the vote?’

  Alice Walsh laughed. ‘Being given says it all in a nutshell.’

  ‘Was there anything
specific that you discussed that might help me build a picture of what took place here last Friday?’

  ‘Tax.’

  ‘Tax?’

  ‘John Stuart Mill, whom I am sure you’ve heard of, once said that women paid tax, and those who paid tax were entitled to have a say in how their taxes should be spent. In other words – or perhaps I should say, in his words – “taxation and representation should be co-extensive”. So, I asked her if she felt it was right that she would be paying tax as a member of the teaching profession without the right to vote. She couldn’t answer.’

  ‘I see.’ Brennan felt as if he’d been harangued from a soap-box. Perhaps Dorothea Gadsworth had felt the same. ‘And were you present when Miss Gadsworth fainted?’

  ‘I was not. Myself and Miss Hardman were outside in the girls’ playground and Miss Ryan was overseeing the boys. She is Mr Weston’s deputy, and apparently that means she holds more sway with the boys. Nonsense, of course. Her frosty demeanour cuts no ice with some of those boys, if you’ll forgive a rather lame metaphor.’

  She waited for him to say something but he remained silent.

  ‘When we returned to the staffroom before lessons resumed, we saw the poor girl recovering and that inspector tending to her.’

  ‘I see. Well, if there’s anything else you can tell me, I’ll be most grateful.’

  She stood up, but before she left she said, ‘I hear she drank some poison?’

  ‘I really can’t tell you anything, Miss Walsh.’

  ‘Because I’m a woman and need to be protected from such horrors?’

  ‘No, miss. Because I’m a detective and need to consult a pathologist. Good evening.’

  She turned and left the room.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Tommy Kelly hadn’t gone far in search of his son, missing now for four days, when he caught sight of his workmate Gilbert Barlow leaving the Pagefield Hotel on the corner of Park Road and Gidlow Lane. Unlike Tommy, whose wife always insisted on a prompt return from work with none of that ‘I were thirsty nonsense’, Gilbert had stopped off for a livener before heading home for his tea. Once Tommy had made his presence known, it was inevitable that both men would see the rationale of a drink in the vault. Women, of course, weren’t allowed in the pub’s vault, and Tommy needed some fortification before embarking on his futile quest to find Billy. As for Gilbert Barlow, it made more sense to agree to the big fella’s invitation than risk a confrontation in the street.