Heaven Knows Who (7 page)

Mr Fleming said, ‘No.' Andrew, who probably knew all about his being fashious if Jess had visitors, remarked that she was surely often oot the noo? The old man made no reply and Andrew said he had a friend waiting for him, and took his departure.

On Monday morning Mr Fleming was up and dressed as before to receive the milk boy; and as before took nae milk. George Paton and Donald M'Quarrie thought it all very strange. No. 17 which had, for the past year at any rate, regularly taken milk morning and afternoon, had now had none since the two penn'orth on Friday morning.

By nine the exemplary old gentleman was at the counting-house ready for work. John Fleming and his son, John junior, were due back from Dunoon that morning—the trip took from two to three hours. He did not wait to see them but conducted his business and started off on his rounds, rent collecting. His business was to hand over two pounds, six shillings and eight-pence
in small rents: it was all in silver. (It seems odd that he had not paid it in during the half hour he spent in the office on the Saturday, but perhaps he had something else on his mind at the moment). He said nothing to anyone about anything being unusual at Sandyford Place.

His grandson got to the counting-house at about eleven: his son John two or three hours later.

Mr Fleming's first call was upon Mr Daniel Paton, who, like Jessie, lived in the Broomielaw. Mr Paton was a dealer in secondhand clothes and furniture and often did a bit of business with old Mr Fleming; he would go round to Sandyford Place and had bought clothes from him that had belonged to any of the three gentlemen residing there—grandfather, father and son. He had been offered nothing, however, since a fortnight ago, when he had bought a pair of trousers and a brownish-grey coat which he thought must have belonged to John junior, for it was too large for the old man. Today, however, Mr Fleming was here only to collect the month's rent. (Unlike poor Jessie, Mr Paton was able to pay). Mr Fleming was wearing a black coat, or at any rate a darkish coat; there seemed nothing remarkable about it—Mr Paton, with his intimate knowledge of and interest in the Fleming wardrobes, thought he would have noticed if it had been new. But he wasn't too sure, altogether; he thought it was the long-tailed black coat that Mr Fleming often wore on his rounds but it might have been the blue beaver, rather longer than a shooting jacket, with big pockets at the side. He could not say whether Mr Fleming had on his black trousers or the steel grey. Mr Fleming seemed quite calm and—appropriately enough for the work he was employed upon—collected.

But Miss Elizabeth Mitchell of Albion Street, where he paid his next call, was another observant sixteen-year-old and more positive than Mr Paton. Mr Fleming had had on his good black clothes, not the clothes he wore for ordinary—his usual clothes were black but very brown from the wear, his long-tailed coat glazed, and greasy looking about the sleeves. He had seemed to her to be very much ‘raised', very flushed, more flushed than was ordinary and though he sometimes had a staring eye, today it was more staring than ever, not restless but fixed and staring. He did not sit down but stood with his back to the dresser, quite agitated-like. After he had gone Mrs Mitchell remarked on it,
‘Mary,' she said, ‘Mr Fleming is very raised like today and has on his best clothes.' Mr Fleming had just walked into the house, said Mrs Mitchell, and stood with both his hands stretched out and his hat raised a little from his forehead—whether by some astral force or by some hitherto unsuspected third hand is not apparent. He did not appear drunk; there was nothing drunk-like about him. She said to Mary that she wondered, could something be wrong? Mary said she was sure she couldn't say.

He seemed very anxious, said Mary, to get the money, but this was perhaps because it was already overdue. Mrs Mitchell had taken the house through him but he had turned her out for nonpayment of rent, and apparently allowed her to keep the tenancy only on condition of her sub-letting. Her tenants had let her down and she still couldn't pay so he had told her she would have to give up altogether. Nevertheless, Mary insisted, if he was raised, it was nothing to do with them; there was no bad feeling.

While Mr Fleming was toddling about among his tenants, Mrs Adams had, according to her promise made on the Saturday afternoon, gone round to the Broomielaw. She arrived at midday and did some washing but she could not recollect whether it was before or after the washing that she was sent on yet another of her missions, to the pawnshop. This time it was to Mr Clark's. Mrs M'Lachlan gave her sixteen shillings and sixpence and the two tickets, and she redeemed a pair of trousers and a waistcoat and jacket of James M'Lachlan's, paying out fifteen shillings and ninepence and giving back the change to Jessie. There is no more news of Mrs M'Lachlan on that Monday.

Mr Fleming was back at the house by half-past two, for at that hour Paton, the milkman, called with the milk bill. The old man appeared on the doorstep. He seemed perfectly calm. He said nothing to explain their having taken no milk since the Friday and did not mention Jess M'Pherson; George Paton assumed that he was to go on calling. The milk bill was one and fivepence ha'penny which seems reasonable enough: John Fleming and his son would have been there during the previous week and the bill would cover milk for four, from Monday afternoon to Friday morning.

At half-past four that afternoon, young John Fleming came home.

CHAPTER FIVE

The two Flemings, father and son, left the counting house together at four o'clock and took the omnibus for North Street. They had not been home since early on Friday, for they had gone straight from the office to Dunoon that night, and this morning had come straight from Dunoon to the office. At North Street they parted, the son going on ahead and the father stopping off to do some shopping. He went first to the flesher's and ordered some collops which the flesher's boy was to deliver—and did indeed deliver with such despatch that they arrived on the doorstep at the same time as John junior. Mr Fleming then went on to the grocer's.

Young John went bounding up the steps. To his surprise his grandfather was there, taking in the parcel from the butcher's. He said as they went into the house, ‘Where's Jess?'

Mr Fleming put down the parcel of meat at the head of the basement stairs. He said, ‘She's awa'. She's cut. I havna' seen her since Friday.' And, he added, her door was locked.

John thought it extraordinary. He went with his grandfather into the parlour at the back of the house and began, with growing concern, to question him. Indeed, he was ‘rather strong with him', he later confessed; he was ‘blowing him up', for he felt sure something must be wrong. Hadn't Grandpa thought of getting the door forced open?

No, he hadn't, said Grandpa. He'd just thought she must be awa' seeing friends.

Young John knew jolly well that Jess was not just away seeing friends; she had been with them far too long to do that sort of thing. He began to feel very ‘queer'. From the moment he'd heard about that locked door he'd thought something must be up. He said: ‘Didn't it occur to you that she might be dead?'

The old man did not answer; he just stood and stared at his grandson. But after a little while he repeated: ‘I havna' seen her since Friday,' and added ‘Dead or not dead, she's awa'.'

The bell rang again and John ran to open it and admitted his father. He was concerned but perhaps a bit excited also at the odd bit of news he had to communicate, and anxious to get in with it before Grandpa. He threw out a hand towards the parcel of meat at the top of the kitchen stairs. He said: ‘There's no use sending anything for dinner here; there's no one to cook it.' He indicated the old man. ‘He says he hasn't seen her since Friday and her room door's locked.' He added: ‘She may be lying there dead for all he knows.'

Mr John Fleming also was concerned and astonished. Jess M'Pherson was very steady and reliable; he trusted her implicitly. He threw his hat on to the hall table and said to the others to come away downstairs with him, and he led the way down to the basement.

He glanced first into the kitchen, but the maid wasn't there and he hardly really looked about him; he did observe that the fire in the grate was low. He went on to Jess's room. The door was locked and there was no key at any rate on the outside—he had no idea whether or not there should be a key to that door.

His first thought was to go into the adjoining pantry and get out into the area through the little barred ‘wicket gate' and to look in through the bedroom windows, or even to climb through into the room—he had forgotten for the moment that they too were barred. But as he was getting the little gate open it occurred to him that the key to the pantry might fit the bedroom lock. The key was in its lock and he took it out and went to the bedroom door.

Young John had meanwhile gone off down the passage to the back door. The door was locked on the inside. The basement seemed very close—there was no actual smell but it was close and stuffy—and he opened the door to let in some air and, leaving it open, returned to his father and grandfather. Mr Fleming was just going back to the bedroom with the pantry key.

The key turned in the lock, the door opened and they all three crowded in.

The room was very dark, the blinds drawn and the shutters half closed. Mr Fleming started across to let in some light.

She was lying face down on the floor beside the bed: poor Jess. Her body was naked from the small of the back downwards, a piece of carpet had been thrown over her head and shoulders. The bedclothes were heaped, blood-stained, upon the bed, the furniture was in confusion. All about the room were splotches of blood.

Into the babel of horrified exclamation, old Mr Fleming's voice piped out clearly. He threw up his hands. ‘She's been lying there all this time,' he cried, ‘and me in the house!'

Down through the ages echo the words of Lady Macbeth, wringing the little hands that all the perfumes of Arabia would not make sweet again: ‘What—in our house?'

Mr Fleming took one look, rushed his father and son upstairs and ran on out into the street to look for help. He knocked at one door after another in vain: everyone was either out or away. At last he met a man at the end of the row and, gasping out his story, begged the gentleman to come back with him. ‘No, no,' said this excellent citizen, ‘you've told me enough already to put me off my dinner,' and, like the Levite, he went his way. Mr Fleming hurried on. He came to the butcher's shop where fifteen minutes ago he had been buying collops for dinner, and rushed in and begged the butcher, Mr Train, to run to the police office, for something dreadful had happened in his house and his servant was lying dead in her bedroom. Mr Train dashed off and Mr Fleming went on up the road in the direction of North Street.

What must have been his relief when he ran full tilt into a doctor!

This was Dr Ebenezer Watson, who was on the steps of his house, probably, like Mr Fleming, going home to his dinner. He turned at once, however, and started back with him to Sandyford Place. On the way Mr Fleming collected Mr Chrystal, the grocer, in whose shop also he had so recently made purchases.

Mr Fleming was by now in a state of very natural excitement, bordering on panic. The herd instinct was evidently strong upon him: for of what use after all were all these strangers likely to have been to him? The poor woman was clearly dead. The police were all that was necessary—even Dr Watson was expendable, for they would bring their own police surgeon. Perhaps there was something to be said after all for the staunch citizen; he would have been put off his dinner to no real purpose.

Mr Fleming, Dr Watson and the grocer hurried along, and as they went Mr Fleming once again poured out his story. And part of his story was that, as he had put the pantry key into the lock of
the bedroom door, this had forced out another key which was on the inside of the lock and which had fallen to the floor inside the room. Later Dr Watson thought he heard him repeat the same thing to a policeman.

There was nothing Dr Watson could do. He took one look at the body, stooped down and touched it briefly and, straightening himself, said: ‘Quite cold. Been dead for some time.' It was obviously not a case of suicide. Had they sent for the police?

Mr Train the butcher had got hold of P.C. Cameron. P.C. Cameron was told by Mr Fleming what had happened, and to him also—as Dr Watson could confirm—Mr Fleming repeated the story about the key on the inside of the bedroom door: only Cameron understood that Mr Fleming had actually peered through the keyhole, seen the key and used the pantry key to push it out, and had heard the key fall on the bedroom floor inside. When the constable came to realise that this was not suicide but murder, he got a candle and searched about for the key. He could not find it. He said so to Mr Fleming, who said well, he'd thought he heard a key fall but he was rather confused.

All this had not gone unobserved by the neighbours. At about five o'clock Mrs Walker—she who had gossiped with Miss Dykes on the pavement on the Friday night and seen the woman in the grey cloak turn into the lane—happened to be looking out of the window, and she saw a policeman running into her husband's shop, which was three doors down Elderslie Street. Mrs Walker leapt to the convenient assumption that some of her children had been about some mischief and hurried down to the shop to find out what was happening. By the time she got there the policeman had left, but she learned from the shopman that he had been there wanting a candle, as Fleming's servant had been got dead in a cellar or some other place, the door of which was locked. Mrs Walker was stricken at having missed him, but she wasn't a woman to be at a loss for long. She asked if the shopman had given the constable any matches and, on hearing the joyful tidings that he hadn't, felt impelled to snatch up a box of lucifers and hurry with it to Sandyford Place.