The Riddle of the River (19 page)

This was the room that interested me. Here, I might find examples of handwriting – Mr Archer’s own handwriting, to identify the empty envelope I had found in her room, or Mr Julian Archer’s writing, or perhaps even Ivy Elliott’s own writing, to identify her letter. And here, I might also find financial information sufficient to prove to me, as Mr Julian
had asserted, that Mr Archer was not able to spend his money freely, could not access any significant sum without its being known…could not, under any circumstances, allow himself to pay a hired murderer, let alone put himself at the risk of blackmail.

I pulled open a drawer of the desk, and then another and another, glancing at the papers they held, riffling through them quickly. I saw nothing unusual and nothing private. Everything seemed to treat of financial affairs of one type or another. Which suited me well enough.

I rapidly went through one after another of the
well-organised
, neatly docketed folders arranged in the drawers. I examined and turned over every single paper. Long experience has made me able to read and understand such papers quickly and accurately. After twenty minutes of searching, I had found nothing to contradict Julian Archer’s description, and everything to confirm it.

Letters from the trustees approving or rejecting various payments, statements of bank accounts, copies of Mr Archer’s own correspondence, everything was there, and everything was in perfect order. As well it should be, since he was periodically obliged to go through it all in detail with the trustees.

I looked with especial interest through a folder labelled
Investments
. Apart from statements of earnings, it contained an exchange of letters between Mr Archer and the trustees going back over some thirty years. It emerged clearly from these documents that Mr Archer had been allowed, many years ago, with trepidation and disapproval, but upon his own insistence, to invest a modest sum of money in a firm whose enterprise he greatly admired. This investment had
turned out extremely profitable, and over the following years, I saw that Mr Archer’s expertise and intuition in the matter of investment had convinced the trustees to place larger and larger sums in the companies that he recommended. It was, however, equally clear that no money connected with these investments was ever transferred to Mr Archer directly, neither the sums invested nor those earned. All passed through the trustees, all went directly to swell the Archer fortune, which by now controlled many thousands of pounds invested in a dozen companies, most of which appeared to be inventors of technological products which had obtained Mr Archer’s approval. I scanned the list briefly.

I could not help but admire Mr Archer’s knowledge of technology and his flair. It did seem rather unfair that he should not freely profit from a single penny that was made through his own efforts. He himself protested the situation in a number of letters. However, the trustees invariably
responded that such were the terms of the ancient will, that increasing the Archer fortune was a worthy goal in itself, and that of course all money he requested for any reasonable activity should be forthcoming with their approval immediately. And they did accede to a number of requests, for voyages, sojourns in hotels in various cities of the Continent, dinners hosted in elegant London restaurants. It seemed that it was not money which was lacking in his life, nor even the freedom to spend it; it was privacy. Yet that very lack was exactly what condemned my idea of a hired killer to hopeless impossibility. And to make matters worse, the numerous examples of his handwriting I examined intently did not correspond – not in a single, solitary, detail – to the writing on the envelope I had found addressed to Ivy Elliott. Nor was there even a scrap of correspondence concerning her to be found in the desk.

I closed the last drawer, disappointed, and slipped quietly out of the french window, down a few steps and onto the lawn. I was about to walk around the house and down the path to the gate, when suddenly and unexpectedly, I perceived a gardener coming towards me, pushing a wheelbarrow.

Afraid that he would stop me, and feeling strongly that I really had no business to be where I was, I pulled back hastily and scampered around the same tree behind which I had been hiding with Estelle the first time I laid eyes upon Mr Archer. But the gardener came around the house, stopped, and began clearing a space to put in some flowers, not two yards from where I stood. I waited on tenterhooks for a moment – he stood up again and went off to fetch something. I took two steps in the direction of flight – he was already coming back! I glanced up into the tree; it stood very close to the house, but
on the other hand it was leafy enough to provide a reasonable hiding place. In no time I was silently perched amongst its lower branches.

I was compelled to remain there for nearly an hour as the gardener worked below me. By peering through the leaves, I found that I could obtain a reasonable view into Mr Archer’s sitting room. I fell to wondering what he would do if he woke up and discovered my departure. My curiosity was eventually satisfied.

I saw him sit up, rubbing his forehead and looking confused. He stretched, and looked all about him. I could not hear him at all, but I believe he called out something, quite probably my name. Then he arose and began to look for me. I shrank back into the branches.

He crossed into the study and looked there, then opened the french window and peered out onto the lawn. I held my breath, expecting him to ask the gardener if he had seen me. But he said nothing; presumably he did not care to advertise his amorous adventures to the servants. Finally, he returned indoors and departed towards the interior of the house. I waited another quarter of an hour, watching the progress of the gardener’s planting with interest; he had set in nearly all the plants, only two were left, only one, none were left, he was finished. He fetched water and watered them copiously, then swept up the scattered leaves and put them in the wheelbarrow. He stopped for a while, taking the sun and fanning himself with his hat while I waited impatiently, then finally moved away, wheeling his now empty barrow.

I shifted on my branch and began climbing down the tree as silently as possible. ‘Ouch!’ I exclaimed under my breath, pulling my arm away sharply as my sleeve became caught on
a twig. I expected it to snap, but it didn’t, so I reached up with my fingers to disengage it. To my surprise, it was not a twig, but a wire which was caught in my sleeve buttons. My fingers unwound it and followed it; almost invisible, it continued upward towards the top of the tree and downwards along the trunk. I took care not to trip over it as I reached the ground. I wondered vaguely if it was a trap of some kind. Magpies, I know, are very annoying when they come to attack the nests of other birds.

Looking about me to make sure there was not a soul in sight, I sped onto the path and away. I hurried all the way home, and as soon as I arrived, I flung myself into a chair and penned a note to Mr Archer so that he should not take my disappearance amiss. In spite of my complete failure to have discovered the slightest incriminating factor, I did not want my acquaintance with him to come to an abrupt end.

I sealed this, went out to post it, and returned home to find Arthur waiting for me. He seemed delighted to see me, came towards me warmly, and put his hand on my arm. I felt horrendously guilty, remembering myself with Mr Archer’s repulsive lips pressed upon mine, suddenly seeing the scene as though through Arthur’s eyes. I blushed to the roots of my hair. He looked at me, a little surprised, then suddenly took my hands in his.

‘You’re very beautiful today,’ he said unexpectedly. I looked at him, and suddenly, as he saw me with different eyes, I saw him with different eyes. I mentally compared him with Mr Archer, and Mr Julian Archer, and was happy. I am really very lucky in my husband.

‘Oh, Arthur, come – let’s go out for a ramble, just the two of us,’ I said. And we left the house behind and walked into the countryside, down lanes and through fields, along streams and under trees. He filled my arms with wild flowers and I filled his hair with kisses. But it was a long time before I felt really able to look him straight in the eyes. When I did, what I found there caused my guilt to be submerged by a rush of other feelings.

‘It’s all very well,’ snorted Lord Kelvin, ‘but I’d rather send a message by a boy on a pony.

The message from Ernest was brief: a telegram containing nothing but the words
I found the flat
. Not even a signature. But of course, I didn’t need one.

‘I’m going back to London for a couple of days,’ I told Arthur.

‘Staying with Ernest and Kathleen?’ he asked.

‘Not exactly,’ I admitted. ‘I’ve taken a room.’

‘A room?’ he asked, surprised. ‘How did you come to take a room when there are both friends and hotels?’

‘It was Ivy Elliott’s room’, I admitted. ‘I thought it might help me discover something, to stay where she lived, and meet people who knew her.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘And has it?’

‘Not much yet. I’ve met the landlady, but she hasn’t been very helpful. Still, I did find out that Ivy shared the room with another girl, only she’s gone. I’m going there now to follow up a different clue.’
I mean to find out how a flat near Piccadilly came to serve as a meeting-place for prostitutes and their clients,
were the words I did not add aloud.

I gathered some clothing into a case, more to furnish my new room convincingly than because I actually needed it. Then I kissed the twins goodbye – they considered me with large, tear-filled eyes but allowed themselves to be consoled by Papa’s complete and undivided attention – and took the
omnibus to town, where I telegraphed to Ernest to meet me at four o’clock on the steps of the Royal Academy.

As soon as I arrived in London, I made my way to my new home. The landlady seemed pleased to see me. I arranged my things, and descended to have a little chat with her before venturing forth on my errand. I wanted to ask her about Miss Jenny Wolcombe.

‘Oh, I’m well rid of her,’ she said, her features suddenly clouded by a look of huffiness and resentment. ‘She came back here just a day or two after you took the room and made a terrible scene. Right here in the house – and people listening!’

Clearly her fury at the unpleasantness she had been put through, and her sense of grievance, far outweighed any discretion on the subject of the previous occupants she might have felt. I put on my very best listening expression.

‘A scene? How dreadful!’ I said commiseratingly. ‘What about?’

‘Accusing me – me! of stealing some letters. As though I ever stole even a farthing from a single one of my lodgers. Why, I treat them like my own children. All that I did for that Miss Jenny, and her to come and accuse me of stealing letters! I told her it must have been the po—’

She broke off suddenly. But whether or not she wanted to mention them, I knew well enough that the letters had not been taken by the police.

‘It certainly isn’t
my
fault, at any rate,’ she went on quickly. ‘How dare she accuse me?’

‘Oh, she has made a silly mistake!’ I cried, struck by a sudden idea. ‘The letters she was looking for stayed in the room; I believe I have just found them, as I was putting my
clothes away!’ And I took the little bundle from my reticule where I kept it.

‘You, miss?’ she said, amazed. ‘You found them? But where were they? I cleaned that room out for you myself.’

‘They were underneath one of the drawers,’ I said, pleased to be truthful for once. ‘I pulled one out completely by mistake, and these fell into my lap. But they are addressed to Miss Elliott, not to Miss Wolcombe. Shouldn’t they be given back to Miss Elliott directly?’

This was a stab in the dark; I wondered what she would say. But she shrugged, and merely contented herself with replying,

‘Miss Wolcombe said to give them back to her.’

‘How can we? Do you know where she is living now?’ I said, trying yet again to pin down that elusive person!

‘I made her tell me,’ said the landlady, still indignant. ‘She didn’t want to. She wants nothing to do with the po – I’m sure she wouldn’t want me to tell anyone.’

She stopped abruptly again, but not before I had quite understood. Naturally, a young woman of Jenny Wolcombe’s type would want nothing to do with the police, and just as naturally, the police would want to find her in order to question her about her friend’s death. I extracted a note from my handbag, which changed hands.

‘She said 14 Shepherd’s Mews,’ she murmured, mumbling a little as though that might make her betrayal less complete. ‘I’ve no idea where that might be,’ she added hastily, as though that, also, could make a difference.

‘I will find the place and leave the letters there for her,’ I said placidly. ‘And I do hope she will offer you an apology. Accusing you of stealing – why, it’s unheard of!’

My radiant good humour (due to having managed to obtain this morsel of information) soon got the better of her indignation, and I left, looking at the clock to see if I had time to locate and visit Shepherd’s Mews before meeting Ernest. It was, however, later than I thought, and I had to to hurry to find a cab and be driven to the Royal Academy, arriving a few minutes after the hour. Ernest was already waiting there, holding his hat on in the gusts of hot, dusty wind which lifted the women’s skirts and shawls and sent papers flying over the pavement.

‘The flat’s not far from here,’ he said after greeting me. ‘Shall we go? It’s not that hard to find it from here, yet I assure you it took me hours of searching. The most confusing thing was that after I’d spent so much time looking around on every single street in the area, they all began to look familiar. I got so mixed up I was about to give up. And that’s just when I found it, of course.’

‘Yesterday?’ I asked.

‘Yes, yesterday. I telegraphed you right away. I’d been going down every street methodically, peering into windows and things. I’ve been scolded plenty of times! I was lucky; I was just standing in front of it, wondering if it could be the one, when a fellow came out. So I just pushed past him into the hall. And then I was certain right away.’

We went down Piccadilly, turned right on Bolton Street and left onto Curzon Street, along which we walked for some little distance.

‘This is where it’s complicated,’ he said finally, looking around and turning left into a little tangle of conflicting lanes. ‘It’s right here somewhere – what’s this? Pitt’s Head Mews? Yes, it’s along here a little, then left again…ah, here we are!’

He stopped, and pointed at a wedge of street containing just a few tall, rather elegant brick buildings, and with no name indicated at all. I peered about me.

‘I asked what the street’s called,’ he told me; ‘they call it Shepherd’s Mews.’

‘Shepherd’s Mews!’ I cried, staring at him. ‘Shepherd’s Mews – really? Why then – why then, it must be at number 14!’

Now it was his turn to stare.

‘You must be a magician,’ he said. ‘How could you possibly have known that? How? How?’

‘It’s simple,’ I said, resisting the temptation to imitate Mr Holmes’s famous technique of not revealing his methods, the better to impress. ‘Ivy Elliott’s landlady knew where Ivy’s friend Jenny Wolcombe went to live after giving up the room they shared. Jenny gave her the address when she went to move out their things.’

‘And she came here?’ he said, gaping.

‘Well, yes,’ I said. ‘I suppose it isn’t very surprising, is it? Miss Elliott had a key, and Miss Wolcombe may have taken it, or possessed her own.’

‘But it wasn’t their flat,’ he said. ‘That was obvious; they were just using it.’

‘Well, if Miss Wolcombe had to move out of her room in a hurry,’ I said, ‘and if she knew this flat to be unoccupied, she might well take refuge there temporarily while looking for something else.’

‘You must be right,’ he replied. ‘Let’s go and see.’

Number 14 was handsome, with a well-polished front door equipped with an imposing brass handle. It was quite large, opening out into two wings on either side of the main hall, with each side divided into several flats.

‘The flat that Ivy used was on the left side here, up the stairs, looking out at the back,’ Ernest told me.

‘If only we could get in,’ I remarked.

‘Let’s wait. Someone will surely come out by and by.’

We waited patiently for half an hour. Ernest tried to extract information from me about the progress of my investigation, and I tried to find out more from him about Ivy. But like a man, he was incapable of giving me a real picture of the girl. He had created a romantic image which he served up to me upon a garlanded platter.

We both jumped as the door swung open and a lady emerged; a lady of a certain age, her hair dressed fashionably though severely. As one, Ernest and I pretended to be just arriving, and made to enter the building through the door she had held open just long enough to pass through.

But to our surprise, the lady wedged her generous frame in the doorway to block our entrance.

‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ she said angrily. ‘We have enough of you people here. This is a decent house.’

‘I – we are only coming to visit someone we know, who lives here,’ I stammered.

‘Don’t lie to me, young lady,’ she said. ‘You think I don’t know what you’re going to do up there in 4B? You think I haven’t seen this gentleman here before, with that other baggage, the blonde? You should be ashamed of yourself!’ she added, shaking her beaded handbag at Ernest. ‘It’s a scandal, and it’s perfectly disgusting! Why, I’ve written a dozen letters – I’ve only just put one in the box, but what’s the use? I’ve never had the shadow of an answer. I suspect you bad girls of simply stealing them! We’ve all had enough; I mean to see the end of this! It must stop at once or I will call the police!
Heaven knows I don’t want the police here, but the situation is getting worse by the day – why, you, sir, are the fourth gentleman I’ve seen going up to 4B since last night! You’d better be on your way at once, this minute, for you’re not getting in here today, to pursue your shameful activities. You be gone, or I’ll call the police this instant!’

She pulled the door closed behind her with a bang, and stalked off past us down the path without so much as a further glance. I looked at Ernest. He was beet red with shame and consternation.

‘I am really sorry,’ he managed to enunciate between closed teeth.

‘Well,’ I said drily, ‘it is all part of my job. Please do not worry about my feelings. I assure you much more unpleasant things have happened to me than being accused of being a woman of easy virtue.’ I thought of Mr Archer’s repulsive kiss and repressed a shudder.

‘What shall we do?’ he asked, as we continued to stand on the front path.

‘We are going to wait until someone else comes out,’ I said. ‘Or no, perhaps I had better wait alone, since you seem to be known here already. I think you should go, Ernest. I will manage it better by myself.’

‘But what will you do?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Something or other. Just go, and let me see what I can discover.’

‘All right, I’ll go,’ he said, ‘but – please do come to our place for supper. Perhaps you can slip me a word about what you find out.’

He left, still red, and I remained calmly waiting on the path until the door opened again. This time a young man came
out. He breathed heavily as though he had been running, and his hat and tie were askew. He held the door for me as I entered, without even looking at me. In fact, he turned his face away. I, on the contrary, followed him with my eyes until he turned into the street and disappeared. Flat 4B?

I entered the hall and hesitated, noticing the residents possessed individual letterboxes, arranged in neat rows along the walls. Each letterbox was marked with a name and a flat number. Immediately, I looked for the name attached to 4B – and this is what I saw!

Mr G Archer, 4B

Mr Archer’s flat! It was in
Mr Archer’s London flat
that Ivy and Jenny met their clients! Could the old gentleman have been aware of this use of his flat? It seemed scandalous, unthinkable – to be sure, Mr Archer had hinted at using his own flat for some unavowable purposes, but surely that was not at all the same thing as allowing it to be used as a…a…

Through the narrow slot where letters were inserted into the box, I perceived a gleam of white. The letter of the irate neighbour, no doubt. Having only just been called a bad girl who stole letters, I felt an irresistible desire to oblige.

I looked around carefully; the hall was empty. Taking off my gloves, I tried to slip my fingers through the slot, but it was too narrow for them them to enter. I could actually touch the letter, but it was impossible to seize hold of it, although I tried for some little time.

Suddenly I thought of a pair of small pincers I always kept in my reticule. They had served more than once on similar occasions. I took them out, and manoeuvered the tips into the
slot, grasped the letter and levered it carefully out. I hesitated for a moment – should I steam it open discreetly and put it back tomorrow? But no. It was too important (or I was too impatient). I tore it open unceremoniously.

I put this letter into my reticule and took my way up the
left-hand
flight of stairs till I reached the landing upon which gave
both flats 4A and 4B. I stopped in front of the door and knocked on it strongly and abruptly, then listened carefully. I thought I heard the sound of a door opening within, and a rustle. I knocked again, and waited, thinking of the panting young man I had seen rushing hastily away, his face averted.