The Curse of Christmas (19 page)

They settled at a small round
table by a sash window that overlooked a brick wall. Business was
slow and her brother was supplementing her income. If things didn’t
improve soon she would start applying for teaching positions. The
caddy of Darjeeling tea was proving to be a good ice-breaker.

“Yes, Dr Watson told me you
considered Miss Quilligan a close friend. I would like to know more
about her in the hope of catching her killer. I met her recently
when I became involved with the Southwark Suffragettes. She was a
tireless worker and a well-organised campaigner. Would you agree,
Miss Pike?”

“Certainly, by the way, call me
Cynthia, there was no one more organized than Lucy Quilligan. We
grew up in the same village. Her family lived on the outskirts and
were quite poor. Not that Lucy ever felt sorry for herself. She
would always just get on with things. Her siblings all died young.
Her mother died when she was twelve and her father passed away just
before we came to London. We travelled together for moral support.
She got a job at that frightful hat shop which she loathed but it
paid the bills. When her great-aunt died and left her a small
legacy she jumped at the chance to put her organizational skills to
good use.”

“I wondered if she ever
supplemented her income some other way?”

“How do you mean?”

The Countess could not say how
she meant without causing great offence to her hostess. “Oh, taking
in typing or some such thing.”

“Not Lucy. She was terribly
focused. She never spread herself too thinly. She liked to give her
concentration over to whatever she was doing. And she was always
hard up for money so I don’t think she ever supplemented her income
with typing or adding fripperies to the bonnets or anything like
that.”

The Countess nodded meaningfully
and smiled pleasantly; her tone was light and friendly. “I believe
she was madly in love with Freddy Cazenove. Did she talk about him
much?”

Cynthia Pike threw back her head
and laughed. “Oh, good heavens, no! She couldn’t stand the man! A
frightful egotist – is what she called him!”

“But, but, she gave the
impression…”

“An act! It was all an act! I
see she had you fooled! No, she played up to his vanity. It was a
way of extracting money for the cause. She always said if Violet de
Merville ever married Freddy Cazenove it would be the biggest
mistake of her life. He wasn’t really interested in
enfranchisement. He just wanted to get a gold ring on Violet’s
finger. It’s not that Violet is an heiress but she has the
potential to be the most brilliant social hostess since the Duchess
of Devonshire. Any man who marries her will soon find every
ambition realised.”

The Countess, who had a high
opinion of herself, had trouble accepting she had been fooled by
someone as insignificant as Lucy Quilligan, and though she accepted
the description of Violet de Merville as potentially brilliant, she
remained skeptical about the rest. Perhaps it was Cynthia Pike who
was fooled. “Are you sure Lucy wasn’t the least bit attracted to
Freddy? Have you met him? He is actually handsome, rich and
charming.”

“And a big phoney! Lucy was what
I call asexual. She wasn’t interested in men. And before you jump
to conclusions, she wasn’t interested in women either. She didn’t
view people that way. She viewed the world and those in it through
a pragmatic lens. Her brain just saw things differently. I was
probably her only friend and yet she never once gave me a hug. She
could display empathy but I think it was a learned response, not
something that came naturally. She was passionately interested in
female emancipation, not because she was passionate, not because
she cared about women, but because it was a cause, a crusade, it
engaged her brain, so to speak.”

Cynthia Pike had won the
Countess over.

“You really did know her well,”
she conceded graciously. “In the place where her body was found
someone had written the word: Angelmaker. What do you make of
that?”

“Langdale coined the term when
he read about Freddy Cazenove’s property development on the Angel
Embankment. Lucy thought it very clever. But who wrote it? Are you
saying the murderer wrote it after he killed her?”

“I don’t know. It could have
been put there before she was killed. It looked like graffiti. I
was hoping you might shed some light.”

“Was it spelled correctly?”

“Yes, apart from a mix of upper
and lower case letters. Why do you ask?”

“Lucy was a hopeless
speller.”

“No, no, she couldn’t have done
it. The graffiti was painted on the brick wall of the viaduct and
there was no can of paint or paintbrush with the body when it was
found. The contents of her bag were strewn about; all the usual
things were there apart from her purse. I cannot imagine the killer
taking her purse plus a can of paint and a paintbrush.”

“In that case, the writer would
have to be someone else who disliked Freddy Cazenove. I guess my
brother would be top of that list, except I can’t imagine him
murdering Lucy because she caught him putting up some graffiti. The
two of them would have laughed about it. Langdale didn’t know Lucy
that well because he was at boarding school most of the time and
spent every holiday staying with his wealthier school friends at
their grand houses, but he actually liked her. He often said she
was the only unhysterical woman he’d ever met. I hope you catch her
killer.”

The Countess thanked Cynthia
Pike and bid her adieu. When she reached the door, she remembered
something else. “Does the word: Anglemaker mean anything else to
you?”

“Nothing at all,” replied Miss
Pike, shrugging and smiling at the same time.

Dr Watson dropped by Mayfair
Mews. The Countess had a superb French cook and any excuse to call
around early evening was always worth a try. He did not consider it
taking advantage of a friend - he knew she hated dining alone – he
considered it doing her a favour. Besides, he had some genuine news
to impart.

During the afternoon he had paid
a visit to his Ghost Club chum, Dr Gregory. He thought it beholden
on him to let Dr Gregory know what they had found in the bundle of
rags since Dr Gregory had been with him when they first spotted it.
His friend did not express as much surprise as expected.

“Did you guess as much?” asked
Dr Watson.

“No, but I happen to know there
is a baby farm in Southwark and when you said dead baby, well, the
penny dropped.”

“Whereabouts in Southwark?”

“I’m not sure of the exact
address. It’s somewhere near Potters Fields. I can find out if you
like. I know someone who works at Guy’s. The Fields are just behind
the hospital. Are you thinking the dead baby might be related to
the ghostly goings-on in Crossbones?”

Dr Watson tossed up whether to
expand on what they had found and decided he could trust his rugby
chum. “Well, here’s the rub, the corpse in the ground with the
bundle of rags wasn’t the corpse that the funeral was held for. In
other words, the mourners thought the body of a prostitute was
going into the grave but it turned out to be an old lady. And then
the next night in the goes the dead baby.”

“That really is a puzzler you’ve
got on your hands. I wish I could help out but I’m snowed under
here. I still have fifteen more patients to see and it’s already
four o’clock. I’ve been going since seven this morning with no
break for lunch, just a cup of tea and two biscuits.”

Dr Watson was keen to get the
address of the baby farm. If Dr Gregory thought it might be related
to the dead baby he wanted to chase it up, and the sooner Dr
Gregory was able to get away the better. “Why don’t I give you a
hand? I had my own practice once and I think I still know what to
do. Have you got a second consulting room?”

Dr Gregory welcomed the offer.
“There’s a poky kitchen out back or my messy sitting room upstairs.
Take your pick.”

Dr Watson chose the messy
sitting room.

By half past five o’clock the
two men were sharing a hansom on their way to Guy’s Hospital. By
six o’clock the address was in the bag. Number 4 Horselydown
Lane.

“Baby farm?” said the Countess
dubiously.

“Dr Gregory thinks the baby farm
in Southwark could be related to the dead baby. Infanticide and
baby farms go together like a horse and carriage. Now, the women
who run these places would probably prefer to toss the dead babies
into the river, but two women were hanged for infanticide - Mary
Waters in 1870 and Amelia Dyer in 1896. So, if they happen know a
couple of grave-diggers who are willing to bury a babe or two in
the middle of the night then that is the best way to proceed. If
questions are asked, the baby can be exhumed and if the cause of
death can be shown to be natural there is less chance of swinging
on the end of a rope.”

“What actually happens at a baby
farm? It sounds like a place for growing turnips, cabbages and
little humans.”

“Baby farms have always been
with us but more ad hoc and out of sight, usually in the
countryside. Wealthy women have always employed wet-nurses, nursery
governesses and tutors for their off-spring in their own homes, as
you will do when your time comes. Moderately wealthy women send
their offspring to a village-woman willing to wet-nurse and raise
their babies until the toddler years, say about two or three years
of age, when children can be expected to behave respectably. Women
who fall pregnant out of wedlock turn to baby farmers too. They pay
a lump sum to have the baby looked after until it can be adopted.
This becomes a problem if the money runs out before the child can
find a home. Hence the infanticide. Some mothers pay quarterly to
avoid the money running out but most simply cannot afford to do so
indefinitely. It is a sad fact of life that most babies in a baby
farm will not survive past the infant years and if they do they
will end up in an orphanage and then the workhouse.”

“Is it possible to visit a baby
farm?”

Smiling, he tapped his top
pocket. “It just so happens I have the address of the baby farm in
Southwark. It is on Horselydown Lane just behind Potters
Fields.”

She indicated the decanter on
the sideboard. “Help yourself to a glass of sherry. There are some
newspapers in the library. I haven’t had a chance to read them
today. I will tell you about my day over dinner. You
will
stay? You know how much I hate dining alone. It is watercress soup
with quail eggs and croutons, pot-roasted pheasant with truffles
and leeks, and tarte a l'abricot. I need to speak to Ponsonby about
putting up the Christmas tree in the bay window and buying a
Christmas wreath for the front door. An evergreen wreath is now all
the fashion. I won’t be long. Considering we are visiting Southwark
after dinner I won’t change into a
robe de diner
if that is
all right with you?”

He managed not to drool as the
dinner menu danced before his eyes and he glanced blankly at her
stunning afternoon dress of white taffeta trimmed with black
Chantilly lace and an embroidered band of black soutache swirls.
“I’m not changing for dinner either so we will just have to
tolerate each other.”

After helping himself to a
generous measure of sherry he opened the newspaper and gagged. The
feature article was on Bertie the Ripper. The accompanying cartoon
had Bertie wearing a crown, holding a royal sceptre in one hand and
a butcher’s knife dripping blood in the other. The rest of the
newspapers had more of the same. The articles were unsparing in
their condemnation of the philandering Prince Regent.

Denials by the Superintendent of
Scotland Yard and calls by various ministers for censorship of the
press were buried several pages later. No one would have read
them.

“It’s a national disgrace. I
don’t think the Prince Regent will survive this latest scandal,”
said Dr Watson soberly as they sat down to dinner.

“He will be packed off to
Australia by New Year,” agreed the Countess matter-of-factly.
“Governor General at best. Life at an outback cattle station at
worst. Queen Victoria has never liked her eldest boy. She will be
happy to see the back of him. She always blamed him for the death
of her darling Albert.”

“In a way it lets us off the
hook. The Prince Regent won’t be paying any more visits to
Southwark. That means the blackmailer will back-off too. We can
concentrate on Crossbones and solved the ghostly goings-on before
Christmas. Now, what did you get up to today? Did you call on Miss
Pike?”

She recounted all that she
learned, including what Miss Quilligan really thought of Viscount
Cazenove. They could cross Langdale Pike off their list suspects.
He wouldn’t have murdered his sister’s friend for the sake of the
graffiti.

“I don’t believe she was out
soliciting which means she was delivering pamphlets or visiting
someone. No, that doesn’t make sense either. She didn’t really
cultivate friends and her immediate family is dead and she had no
gentlemen friends either. One interesting possibility is that she
got a good look at the man throwing fire crackers and paid the
price. And even more interesting, he bears a striking resemblance
to our mystery man. I would say he is the killer but for the fact
he didn’t enter the viaduct, and at the time she was killed he was
inside the brothel.”

“How do we know he was inside
the brothel?”

“Because we saw when he came
out. Because Fedir signalled that the man we wanted was on his way,
which means Fedir saw him in there.”

“Mmm. The mystery man certainly
gets around. I think he might be a criminal for hire.”

Her blood suddenly ran cold.
What other criminal for hire did she know? And did he really go to
Monte Carlo? Or was he still in London? What’s more, he was a
friend of Freddy Cazenove’s. They had been having breakfast
together. Were they also working together? Plotting together?
Everything always came back to Freddy Cazenove. And Moriarty!