The Riddle of the River Read online

  ‘Who was she?’ I asked him suddenly.

  ‘Oh, she was just a little actress,’ he replied with a shrug. ‘A sweet, good girl, but not important. I was very fond of her, but I don’t pretend for a second that she was fond of me, or rather, that she was fond of me only. A girl like that has to earn her living as she can. Not like you. You’re a good girl, anyone can tell that.’ He settled closer to me and laid his head on my shoulder. ‘Goodness, how tired I am,’ he remarked, closing his eyes.

  ‘Oh,’ I said kindly, ‘do take a little rest.’ And I petted his white hair, willing him to sleep. It was not long before he sank into a deep, drug-induced slumber. I disengaged myself, deposited the old gentleman on the sofa, and stood up. I had a little time to explore freely, for the maid had been told not to enter. The sleeping draught was by no means a strong one, and Mr Archer might be awakened by any loud noise, so I slipped out of the room silently and closed the plush-covered door to the study behind me.

  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.

  Wagner Typewriter Co.

  Herreshof Yacht Manufacturing Company

  Friese-Green London Ltd.

  London Telegraph Company

  Dickson Kinetograph, Baltimore

  Emile Berliner Gramophone Company

  Raff and Gammon Co.

  Thomas J. Lipton, Tea Planter

  The Marconi Company

  Lanston Monotype Printing

  Gaumont Cinéma, Paris

  General Electric Company, Schenectady, New York

  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.

  Dear Mr Archer,

  You seemed very tired, so I slipped away quietly. I hope you forgive me. I spent a perfectly lovely afternoon. Yours truly,

  Vanessa Duncan

  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.

  1897

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

  Saturday, July 16th, 1898

  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…a
h, 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.