The Riddle of the River Read online

  But when the moment came to separate him from them, he proved stubborn.

  ‘Me keep this,’ he said, clutching the half-sucked sweet which filth had fortunately rendered no longer sticky.

  ‘No, Cedric,’ I said firmly.

  ‘Well, me keep this,’ he said, attaching himself to the crumple of paper.

  ‘All right, you keep that,’ I said with relief, brushing everything else into the gutter.

  ‘It’s got witing on it,’ he told me, showing it to me.

  The merest glance, and my heart gave a jolt of surprise. A crumple of scribbled paper lost in a bookshop armchair – if I had thought at all, I would have expected a reference or a list of titles, brought in for some useful purpose and discarded. Instead, what Cedric displayed to my astonished eyes was a letter – and, looking more closely, a love letter.

  My darling, I read,

  You don’t even know how near I am to you, but I will see you in a moment! Oh, even if the words I long to say to you directly cannot be spoken aloud yet, I cannot resist writing them down for you, here and now, black on white. I will slip them into your hand when nobody is watching and my heart will know you have heard them.

  I love you.

  I love you.

  I love you.

  I never thought I would find love like this, in this way. But now I have found it, I know it is love, because I think about you all the time. Other people have found so many wonderful words for this, words that I have spoken aloud a thousand times. But even if my own words are poor in comparison, I know you understand them as they are meant, not as they sound. Tomorrow we will stand up and say the truth to the whole world! And tomorrow is already today.

  Your own Ivy

  Ivy?? Ivy? Ivy! Was it possible?

  Ivy is a fairly common name.

  And yet, there was a connection between Ivy Elliott and Heffers bookshop. Mr Archer himself constituted a connection. Mr Archer’s son constituted a connection. Was I mistaken, or did he not live just upstairs, over the shop? I will see you in a moment…

  Of course, the letter might not have been written in Heffers – might not have been written moments before her death at the hands of her murderer. Yet as I stared down at the simple words, I felt that it must have been. For clearly, tomorrow and its truth had never come. And whatever that truth might have been, was it not also the cause and reason of her murder? Could Julian Archer have promised to marry her, and have murdered her instead?

  I felt an anxious tugging at my skirt, and looked down. Cedric was waiting for the return of his treasure, his eyes anxious, his hand outstretched.

  ‘Mamma needs to keep this,’ I told him, bending down to speak to him face to face. ‘You’re a good boy to have found this wonderful thing. Will you give it to Mamma as a present?’

  He looked up at me, his generous little heart already willing, though still slightly suspicious.

  ‘Can I still have a bun?’ he asked timidly but hopefully. ‘With raisins in it?’

  ‘Raisins in it, and sugar on top!’ I promised, tucking the letter away. ‘Let’s go and get it this very minute.’

  A three-and-a-half-year-old man is still a man, and we have all been told a thousand times that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

  ‘Inspector Doherty,’ I said, seated across from him half an hour later, holding a somewhat grubby and rather tired small boy on my lap. ‘I hope you don’t object to my coming to see you about the Ivy Elliott case. There are a few things that I feel I simply must ask you about.’

  ‘Well, Mrs Weatherburn,’ replied the inspector, ‘I’m ready to hear whatever you have to say.’

  ‘First of all, I want to ask you – this has been troubling me for some time now – if it is not possible that Ivy Elliott never really left Chippendale House after all. I mean, she was seen to go walking down the path, but could she not have simply returned to the house a few minutes later on, and waited for Mr Archer somewhere within?’

  He smiled.

  ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘But Mr Archer has an alibi.’

  ‘He was at the party in his own house,’ I argued. ‘He could easily have left it to go upstairs for just a few minutes – that’s all it would have taken him.’

  ‘But he didn’t leave. Didn’t you read what the witnesses stated?’ he reminded me.

  ‘I did read over them quickly,’ I said, ‘I know they said he remained at the party, but…’

  Taking out the same folder of statements that he had already shown me, he extracted one and put it in front of my eyes. I read it; the words seemed familiar.

  The party took place in Mr Archer’s drawing room, which has large windows giving over the front garden. Miss Elliott was in the drawing room for most of the evening. She did not exactly act as hostess, but took care of the material aspects of the service, telling the servants when to bring liqueurs and biscuits, which curtains to draw and which to leave, when to light the outdoor lanterns and so on. She left quite late. I did not look at the time, but it must have been near midnight. She seemed tired, and going up to Geoffrey, she told him that she thought she would be on her way. She said she was going to a friend. He asked her if she was sure she wanted to leave, and pressed her to stay a little while longer. She did so, but after a few minutes she said that she was very tired, and would leave. He went out into the hall with her to bid her goodbye. He cannot have been out of the room for more than five minutes. She left, and Mr Archer returned and remained with us for the duration of the party, which continued until past 2 o’clock. He did not leave the room again. I am certain of it, as I was sitting on the sofa next to him for the entire time. He simply rose to his feet once or twice to say a few words to the butler.

  ‘And you believe this absolutely?’ I insisted.

  ‘Several others say the same,’ he replied. ‘Yes, we believe it. Apart from his alibi, he doesn’t appear to have any motive. Of course we considered him as a major possibility from the start. We thought the girl might have been threatening to make some kind of a scandal about the child she was expecting. But we soon learnt that there was and could be no possible proof that Mr Archer was the child’s father. Given what we discovered about Miss Elliott’s life, she could not have made any statement on the subject that would have carried the slightest weight. Mr Archer had neither opportunity nor motive.’

  ‘Perhaps he hated prostitutes, like Jack the Ripper,’ I suggested meekly.

  He looked at me sharply. He had almost certainly thought me unaware of the details of Ivy’s life. However, he shrugged, and answered,

  ‘By all accounts, far from hating them, he liked them very much. Very frankly, Mrs Weatherburn, you’re barking up the wrong tree here. I suggest you leave Mr Archer aside as a suspect. Have you no other ideas?’

  The image of Kathleen flashed in front of my mind, but I put it aside resolutely.

  ‘Even if Mr Archer has an alibi,’ I persisted stubbornly, ‘could he not have hired a killer to wait outside the house for Ivy to leave?’

  ‘Too dangerous, because of the risk of blackmail, for what seems a weak motive. And extremely expensive as well,’ he replied.

  ‘How expensive?’ I asked, wondering at the insanity of such a question, and passing my hand half-consciously over little Cedric’s ears, although he could certainly not understand what was meant by the term ‘hired killer’.

  ‘A small fortune,’ he replied. ‘It’s not enough to purchase the act itself. One must purchase the silence of the murderer. And that silence is never really certain. But in any case, we know that the girl did not return to the manor, nor was she murdered directly on leaving it. We did a large-scale search for anyone who was in the streets between midnight and two o’clock on the night of her death. There are not many people out and about at that time of night, but we did find a few. And we have two statements describing a woman we think must have been Ivy Elliott. Listen to this.’

  He shuffled them out of his desk drawer and read them to me a
loud.

  We were on our way home down Newnham Street. I can’t say the exact time but it was certainly between twelve and twelve-thirty. I came home at twelve-forty-five, so I guess it could have been close to twelve-fifteen when I saw the woman. She was walking along the street, and I remember feeling surprised to see a woman alone and on foot at that hour. I hesitated about offering her a place in my carriage, and told the driver to slow down. But then when I saw her more clearly, I thought that she might be a kind of woman I should not want to know. It wasn’t that she was painted or flagrantly dressed. She was wearing a peculiar gown, loose and flowing. But she looked up at me so boldly as the carriage passed her that I changed my mind and told the driver to go on.

  ‘That’s the first one,’ said the inspector. ‘The other is even clearer.’

  I was out walking because I couldn’t get to sleep. I thought I would just take a turn outside. I live on Market Street. I went down the street to the end and turned left along King’s Parade. There was almost no one about. That’s why the figure of the woman in white struck me. She was coming up King’s Parade towards me. She passed me right about in front of the Senate house, and turned left onto St Mary’s behind me. I was struck by her attitude; her hands were clasped together, she seemed excited. I turned and followed her for a moment. I walked back up to St Mary’s and looked around the corner, just in time to see her going around the front of the church. I didn’t approach her, as I thought she might take fright, and that it would be a cruel thing to do, to appear to be following a lady around in the dark of the night. So I just glanced around to the front of the church. The woman was kneeling in front of the church, praying. She remained there for several moments, and then she jumped up and scurried off very quickly around the Market Square. I let her alone and resumed my walk. I did not see her again.

  ‘Market Square,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘Where could she have been going?’

  ‘That is exactly what we would like to know.’

  There was a short silence, then I asked,

  ‘Have you any other suspects?’

  ‘Other than Mr Archer, you mean? My dear Mrs Weatherburn, I really think you are going to have to relinquish that idea once and for all. At this time, we are giving particular consideration to the angle of Miss Elliott’s friends, and in particular, the ‘‘friend” she mentioned at the party as being the one she was staying with. Surely she was on her way to this friend when she crossed the Market Square. We have advertised for the friend, but as yet nothing has been forthcoming, and that is suspicious in itself. In the meantime, the police in London are investigating her life there. How about you?’

  ‘Well,’ I said, a little reluctantly, but struck by a sense of duty, ‘I have an idea about the ‘‘friend” that Ivy was going to see. I think she might have been referring to Mr Archer’s son, Mr Julian Archer. He lives in Petty Cury, over Heffers bookshop – Ivy could very well have been going there, couldn’t she?’

  ‘Petty Cury? Yes, from what the witness describes, of course she could have. But that is not a sufficient reason to suppose that Mr Julian Archer had anything to do with her murder. Decidedly, Mrs Weatherburn…’ I quickly interrupted what resembled the beginnings of a lecture, and taking out the letter, I handed it to him directly.

  ‘I found this stuffed down in the armchair at Heffers,’ I told him.

  ‘I found it, Mamma!’ Cedric corrected me loudly. The inspector cast him a glance which quelled him instantly, then read the letter quickly through.

  ‘Now this is interesting,’ he said, ‘and also, perhaps, important. You really found it in the bookshop? When did this happen?’

  ‘Not an hour ago,’ I told him. ‘I was looking for a book, and Cedric was playing in the armchair. Of course, we don’t know that it is the same Ivy. I don’t have any examples of her handwriting. But I feel that it must be.’

  ‘I’ll be able to have that verified soon enough,’ he replied. ‘My London colleagues must have access to some handwriting samples of hers. Now, just proceeding for a moment on the assumption that the letter really was written by Miss Elliott, what does it mean? Who was it written to, and when?’

  ‘It isn’t easy to guess,’ I said. ‘But the letter must have been written after midnight, given that she says ‘‘tomorrow is already today”. And since she clearly refers to something very important happening ‘‘tomorrow”, and this thing, whatever it was – it sounds like a public declaration of betrothal, or something of the kind – does not seem to have happened, I infer that it was written on the very night that she died.’

  ‘Hardly,’ he objected. ‘The thing, whatever it was, could have been meant to happen weeks or months ago, and may not have come off for any number of possible reasons.’

  ‘Indeed. But if so, one can imagine that the letter was sent and received, in which case I can’t imagine how it could possibly have ended up in the armchair.’

  ‘I am wondering how it came there in any case.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Well, now that I have learnt from you, or rather, from your witnesses, that she was seen in the vicinity of the bookshop after leaving Mr Archer’s house, it is not difficult to imagine an explanation.’

  ‘Such as?’ he said.

  ‘Well, for example, let us imagine that Ivy Elliott and Mr Julian Archer were in love, and that he had given her a key to the bookshop, perhaps even some time ago, to facilitate their meetings. Suppose, though, that she insisted on marrying him, and that he had let himself be trapped into a promise he had no desire to keep. He may have told her to come to the bookshop after the party at his father’s house and wait for him there, then come down and killed her.’

  ‘It doesn’t hold water,’ he said.

  ‘Why not?’ I asked indignantly.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘first of all, you say he told her to come to the bookshop, and she says in the letter that he doesn’t know she’s there.’

  ‘True,’ I said. ‘All right, she came without telling him, as a surprise. Or else, he told her to come, but imagined that she would arrive much later, towards two o’clock, so he could have no idea that she was already there when she wrote those words.’

  ‘And you think she wrote this letter while waiting to see him?’

  ‘It could be.’

  ‘Doesn’t that seem odd to you?’ he continued. ‘Why write to him at all, if she was about to see him? And how could she be sure of seeing him in a moment, if he was expecting her an hour or two later?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said slowly, ‘but she does clearly say that she is writing to him although she will see him in a moment. People in love do odd things. I know – perhaps what she meant to do was to write the letter, then carry it upstairs to his rooms! That would explain it. Although I admit that I can’t quite see why she should not speak the words rather than writing them – and why she should secretly slip the letter into his hand. Perhaps he was not alone, and she knew it?’

  ‘Well, that makes sense,’ he admitted. ‘Mr Archer doesn’t live alone up there.’

  ‘Well, then!’ I exclaimed triumphantly.

  ‘Well what?’ he challenged. ‘How do you see what followed? If she did go up, then what did she do with the letter?’

  I reflected for a moment. ‘She can’t have gone up,’ I said, ‘otherwise she would have given it to him. Maybe she went up and he was not in…but no, even then she would have kept or destroyed the letter, or left it for him. She can’t have gone up. Mr Archer must have come down and killed her.’

  ‘That’s all very well,’ he said, ‘but we just agreed that he didn’t know she was there.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Well…maybe he was looking out of the window, and happened to see her coming down the street?’

  ‘So he hopped down and killed her? Just like that? On an impulse?’

  I cast about desperately.

  ‘Well, maybe he had premeditated that she would come at two o’clock and he would kill her then,’ I said, ‘and when he spotted he
r earlier, he just did what he had planned to do anyway.’

  ‘But if he had planned to meet her at two o’clock,’ he argued, ‘why would it have been in the bookshop at all? Why, if there was any plan to meet, couldn’t she simply come upstairs directly? Don’t tell me that he didn’t want to see her in his rooms, or that she wasn’t supposed to come there. Because if that were true, she wouldn’t have meant to go upstairs after writing her letter.’

  ‘Er,’ I said.

  ‘And for that matter,’ he went on inexorably, ‘if he did come down and surprise her, how did the letter end up in the armchair?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I scrabbled, ‘maybe before she could give it to him, he told her that he didn’t want to marry her after all. Then, if she had been sitting in the armchair, reading it over, say, she might have crumpled up the letter in a fury and thrust it away.’

  ‘She’d have been more likely to tear it up and throw the pieces in his face, don’t you think?’ he said.

  I did think so.

  ‘And in any case,’ he continued firmly, ‘I still don’t see any real motive.’

  ‘Well,’ I mumbled timidly, ‘because maybe he had promised to marry her and no longer wanted to…’

  ‘My dear Mrs Weatherburn, do you see any reason why he should not simply have told her that he had changed his mind?’

  ‘Breach of promise…?’

  ‘Mr Archer’s word against a woman like hers, in a court of law?’ he said, and laughed outright.

  ‘Maybe she was blackmailing him,’ I ventured, in a last, desperate attempt.

  ‘What for? Julian Archer doesn’t possess the kind of social status for which an affair with a prostitute can destroy him. And for that matter, blackmail hardly seems compatible with such a letter.’

  It was hopeless. My idea made no sense, no sense at all. And yet – she must have been in the bookshop – she must have written the letter there – and given the time of her death, she may well have been killed there…