An Appetite for Murder (25 page)

‘I wouldn’t have been included in professional conversations of that nature. After Sweetman was arrested there was, of course, idle speculation about the consequences. Whibley took over a lot of Sweetman’s work, and he and Finn spent many an hour poring over the books together. Old Mr Finn was dreadfully despondent.’

‘It has been suggested,’ said Frances, ‘that Mr Whibley found Mrs Sweetman a most charming and attractive lady. Do you know if he took advantage of her husband’s absence?’

Elliott smiled. ‘I would not have been surprised to learn that that was the case, but Mr Whibley, for all his reputation, always took care never to allow his private affairs to intrude into the office.’

‘Did Mrs Sweetman ever come to you concerning any possible benefit from Mr Whibley’s will?’

‘Mrs Sweetman?’ he said, puzzled. ‘No, there was no reason for it, she was not mentioned in the will and as far as I know there was no reason she should have been. Ah, I see what you are suggesting, that had she been his mistress or even the mother of a child, she might have expected something from him. He was a generous man, and the fact that he left her nothing is in my opinion, the strongest evidence that there was no association. No, I don’t believe Whibley ever mentioned her to me, and I have not seen the lady or heard anything from her since her husband’s conviction.’

Mr Finn, who seemed if anything a little larger and a little less comfortable than he had been at their last meeting, was unable to assist Frances in her enquiries about the books. ‘My uncle said nothing to me about it, and I heard no rumours. And you know what offices can be like, there are always a dozen or so stories going about, so if there had been anything discovered I would have known about it. I could hire a team of specialist accountants to go back through the books, if you were prepared to finance the operation,’ he added.

‘That will not be necessary at this point,’ said Frances, although she thought it might come to that. If it did, she had just the persons in mind.

At home, she wrote a brief reassuring note to Mr Sweetman, wondering if she would still be as reassuring after her interview with Mr Matthew Gibson.

Sarah had been out on her own errands that day, since there were a number of cases Frances turned over to her sole discretion as being particularly suitable to her talents. Not a few ladies of the Bayswater Women’s Suffrage Society, having reason to complain of their husbands, had received a visit from Sarah and some sound advice. She also, on her return, revealed that her good friend Professor Pounder, encouraged by the great success of his Sparring Academy for Gentlemen, had agreed that an establishment for the healthful exercise of the female sex would be of great benefit. There was to be one day a week when only ladies would be admitted and only ladies in charge, and Sarah was to supervise. ‘I’ll have them swinging clubs,’ she said, with an expression of great satisfaction. ‘All ladies ought to know how to swing a club.’

As they were finishing supper, Tom arrived, and Frances entertained some hope that he might have found the author of the Sanitas letter, but so far he had not, although every message he had been asked to run had been compared to the photograph Frances had provided. While Sarah was no longer acting as cleaner to the Finn residence, he and his team had continued to keep a watch on both Mr Finn and Mr Yeldon to identify outbreaks of secret eating and the purchase of extra comestibles, so far without success. That evening, however, Mr Finn, after leaving the office, had gone straight from there to another residence he had not previously visited, and Tom had hurried to Frances with the address.

Frances was not sure how many industrious ‘men’ Tom was now harbouring and feeding, but on receiving the note, she handed him a bag of buns, a pot of jam and some cheese. He seemed happy enough although she sensed that he felt curiously cheated at not being obliged to employ his skills in abstracting items of food. He looked about him, saw that Sarah was munching raisins from a dish and his eyes lit up.

Frances frowned at the address on the paper, since she had seen it very recently. ‘Surely not!’ she said, and went to get her directory. When she returned, both Tom and the raisins had disappeared. Studying the directory, she found that her initial impression had been correct. ‘Well,’ she exclaimed in amazement, ‘that would have been the very last person I would have expected him to be visiting.’ The address was that of Mr Rustrum, Chairman of the Bayswater Pure Food Society and advocate of abstemious living for good health. ‘Now why should Mr Finn be visiting Mr Rustrum?’ said Frances. ‘I had no idea that the two gentlemen even knew each other.’

‘He certainly hasn’t been going there to get fed,’ said Sarah, looking about for the missing raisins.

‘No indeed,’ said Frances thoughtfully. ‘But I believe that Mr Finn, for all his many protestations that fat is good for a man and that he does not need to shed weight, is secretly worried about his health. He has been in a great deal of pain from his back, and that may have changed his mind. He will have read about the Pure Food Society in the newspapers and I know that Mr Rustrum is very free with his pamphlets and lectures. Perhaps Mr Finn made an appointment with him to seek advice. When you next go to take tea with Mrs Goswell, could you take a note for Mrs Finn? I will tell her that her husband has been consulting an expert on diet about his weight. That will certainly please her and she may decide that she no longer requires my services. We don’t know of course how long Mr Finn has been consulting Mr Rustrum, or why he chooses not to tell his wife of it.’

‘That last bit’s easy enough,’ said Sarah. ‘He’s been so sure of his opinion he doesn’t like to admit he was wrong, so he’s doing it on the quiet. That’s true of all men.’

‘And it may explain why Mr Finn was so critical of the Sanitas letter, as it was attacking a friend of his.’

Frances composed the note and handed it to Sarah. ‘I am only pleased that the matter has been resolved without pain to either party,’ she said, with satisfaction. ‘If only all my cases could end so.’

Frances had barely commenced breakfast the following morning when a banging at the door and a shrill shouting announced that there was a visitor with a very urgent errand. She peered out of the window, with the uncomfortable feeling that a stern rebuke from her landlady would inevitably follow this disturbance. She was in time to see the housemaid waving her arms in despair after being thwarted in the middle of her indignation and the flapping tails of some rags scurrying into the house. Moments later, young Ratty was at her door in a breathless state.

‘Miss Doughterey!’ he gasped. Ratty had a tendency to add extra syllables to words, especially when he was agitated. ‘Y’ got t’ come quick! Right now! It’s Mr Finn, y’know Fatty Finn, he’s been burglered. All the coppers’r there and the Grove is in a state, and y’ got t’ come.’

Frances threw on her cloak. ‘I’ll get a cab and you can tell me all about it on the way. It’s the office, yes, not the house?’

They dashed downstairs. ‘Yer, the door’s all broke, n’ that, an’ ‘spector Sharrock is there, ‘n they got Mr Finn ter come, n’ ‘e don’t look good. Man with a belly bigger’n me, that in’t right!’ He shook his head. ‘Oh, an’ Tom says to say that the two fly gents came back from Afriky this mornin’, lookin’ very dapper, so gawd only knows what
they’ve
been up to.’

They left the house at a run. Frances waved at the first cab she saw, and they leaped in. Ratty, for whom this must have been his first time in a cab, stared about him, open-mouthed, and prodded the seats with an inquisitive finger.

‘I hope no one is injured?’ asked Frances, anxiously.

‘No, ‘cos they don’ think the burglerer got in, but ‘e’d bin ‘avin’ a good go at the locks on the door.’

‘I suppose it was last night,’ said Frances. ‘But whoever did it hadn’t reckoned with the stout locks they had put in after the previous robbery. I wonder,’ she thought aloud, ‘what they have got in there that a robber might want and easily take?’

‘Munny, ‘n gold, ‘n all sorts,’ said Ratty, excitedly. ‘Jools, ‘n munny ‘n treasure n’ important things …’ he ran out of ideas.

‘Hmm, well what they have and what a robber might
think
they have could be very different,’ said Frances. ‘But even when the office was robbed a long time ago, everything of value was kept in the safe, and on that occasion the thief had a key. I very much doubt that that situation has changed.’ She could not help wondering if this development had anything to do with her recent enquiries, and the more she thought about it the more certain she became.

‘This bein’ a ‘tective, y’ need to be clever ’n think ’n that,’ said Ratty, twisting his grubby face into a serious little knot.

‘Yes,’ agreed Frances. ‘Thinking is very important. It’s –’ she paused. ‘It’s the most important thing there is.’

Ratty opened his eyes wide in wonder. ‘C’n I be a ‘tective?’ he asked suddenly. ‘I c’d; I c’d do all sorts ‘v things – ‘n I c’d learn about thinkin’ ‘n all that.’

Frances stared at him. ‘How old are you, Ratty?’

‘D’no.’

‘What’s your real name?’

‘D’no.’

‘Well, you are quite the man of mystery, which is a very good start. Here we are!’

The excitement in the Grove had drawn the usual idlers, who had gathered in the street around the front door of J. Finn Insurance in the hope of seeing something sensational. Really, thought Frances, if people were so desperate for a little novelty in their lives they should all become detectives and then their passion for the unusual would be satisfied every day. She and Ratty jumped down from the cab and hurried to where Constable Mayberry was standing guard at the office door.

‘You can’t come in here!’ said Mayberry, stretching out his arm, palm forward.

‘Nonsense!’ said Frances impatiently, and swept past him before he knew what had happened.

The office interior was crowded with worried-looking clerks, and Mr Finn was sitting at a desk looking crumpled, like a hot-air balloon that had come to earth and was in the process of deflating.

‘How did
you
get in?’ demanded Sharrock as Frances appeared.

‘Through the door,’ said Frances. ‘Can you tell me what has occurred?’

‘If I do, will you go away?’ said Sharrock. ‘And what’s
that
?’ he added pointing at Ratty, who had somehow managed to slip past Mayberry in the confusion and was gazing about very intently looking for clues, rubbing his forehead as if that might stimulate his brain.

‘My special assistant,’ said Frances.

Ratty grinned and squared his shoulders. ‘I’m a ‘tective!’ he said, ‘’n I’m learnin’ how t’ think!’

‘It’s not even human!’ said Sharrock. ‘Mayberry!’ he bellowed, ‘when I get you back to the station I shall skin you alive! You’re turning this place into a menagerie!’

‘I am sorry to have caused trouble for your constable,’ placated Frances.

‘Oh he can get into trouble without any help from you. Now tell me what you want and then clear off.’

‘Inspector,’ said Frances, ‘I think you will agree that I have had some interest in this establishment in the last week or two and I might be able to advise you. I am told that an attempt was made to break into the premises last night but it was unsuccessful. Is that correct?’