The Truth-Seeker's Wife Read online

  The Truth-Seeker’s Wife

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One Elizabeth Martin Ross

  Chapter Two Elizabeth Martin Ross

  Chapter Three Elizabeth Martin Ross

  Chapter Four Elizabeth Martin Ross

  Chapter Five Elizabeth Martin Ross

  Chapter Six Inspector Ben Ross

  Elizabeth Martin Ross

  Chapter Seven Inspector Ben Ross

  Chapter Eight Inspector Ben Ross

  Chapter Nine Elizabeth Martin Ross

  Inspector Ben Ross

  Chapter Ten Elizabeth Martin Ross

  Inspector Ben Ross

  Chapter Eleven Elizabeth Martin Ross

  Inspector Ben Ross

  Chapter Twelve Inspector Ben Ross

  Chapter Thirteen Inspector Ben Ross

  Elizabeth Martin Ross

  Chapter Fourteen Inspector Ben Ross

  Chapter Fifteen Inspector Ben Ross

  Chapter Sixteen Inspector Ben Ross

  Chapter Seventeen Elizabeth Martin Ross

  Chapter Eighteen Elizabeth Martin Ross

  Chapter Nineteen Elizabeth Martin Ross

  About the Author

  Also by Ann Granger

  Copyright

  Cover

  Table of Contents

  Start of Content

  This book is dedicated to my dear granddaughter, Josie, with love and very best wishes for your future, in whatever you do.

  Chapter One

  I have very little time left and I do not need Dr Wilson to tell me. But I will settle all outstanding matters before I die. It is an obligation, is it not, to leave one’s affairs in order? I shall take care of everything.

  Elizabeth Martin Ross

  The scattering of grey-and-white feathers on the road marked the murder scene.

  When I opened the curtains at the bedroom window this morning I’d looked down to see a young pigeon, waddling along the pavement. It started to plod across the road. Then, in the middle of London’s brick and stone forest, against the noise of the great engines in nearby Waterloo Station, from out of the smoke-veiled sky dropped a peregrine falcon. It seized the pigeon and carried it off. It happened so quickly that I couldn’t quite believe it, yet the morning breeze from the river was already blowing away the evidence.

  Sometimes murder comes like that, quick and ruthless, seizing the moment. Or the killer can be a careful predator, watching and waiting. In either case the prey, man or beast, is doomed. I am still trying to put out of my mind the events of a few weeks ago, when Aunt Parry and I paid our ill-fated visit to the south coast. But I shall never forget it: neither the shock of the first crime, nor the ghastliness of the last.

  * * *

  Spring is always welcome and that year, 1871, it was particularly so. The past winter had seen a fog-shrouded world. Londoners had been trapped, suffocated by foul air. But now the snow had gone, the fogs were fewer and less dense, the coughs and sneezes were a fading memory, and green shoots had appeared on trees and bushes in the parks. At Scotland Yard, so my husband Ben told me, the atmosphere was positively cheerful. Well, at least compared with what it had been for the previous few months.

  ‘It won’t last,’ he added. ‘You’ll see.’ He was addressing his reflection in the shaving mirror; I wasn’t entirely sure whether he was telling me or reminding himself.

  In either case, he was almost certainly right. Not only were honest citizens making plans for the better weather; every kind of criminal in the city was doing the same. The social season would soon begin for the wealthy. They were shutting up their country houses and the servants had been sent ahead to open up their town residences. Hostesses were setting the dates for balls and parties; appointments were being made with fashionable dressmakers and smart tailors. I am glad I never had to go through the Season. My father was only a doctor in a small mining community.

  Together with the rest of their luggage, the wealthy brought their jewel boxes to London. Thieves are like magpies, attracted by bright, shiny things. For them the London Season meant easy pickings. Housebreakers and receivers of stolen goods were probably rubbing their hands in gleeful anticipation. Like the professional gamblers, and all kind of confidence tricksters, they saw the coming influx of the well-to-do with the cheerful anticipation of trawlermen spotting the silvery gleam of shoals of fish.

  ‘In a couple of weeks’ time,’ prophesied Ben, wiping the remains of shaving soap from his chin, ‘we shall be run off our feet. Not only at the Yard, mark you! But every police officer in town.’

  My former employer, before I married, Mrs Julia Parry was also making travel plans, but these involved leaving London. She was the widow of my late godfather, who had left her comfortably off. Her own business acumen had increased her wealth. After spending the winter sequestered in her London house, she now had an urge for travel. There was however a problem. The war between Prussia and France had only just played out its last desperate scenes, but the end of hostilities had not brought peace. France was still in turmoil. Blood ran on the cobbles of Paris, which was seeing an uprising of revolutionary elements and ruthless actions by the authorities to suppress them.

  Needless to say, Aunt Parry viewed the events across the Channel, with their tragedies and violence, strictly from her own viewpoint. It was as if she held a Stanhope device to her eye and viewed the Continental scene in detail but in miniature, events reduced to the strict boundaries of her own interests.

  ‘There is no question of my travelling abroad,’ she lamented. ‘I shall remain in England, but make a journey to the coast somewhere, to take the sea air.’

  The conversation was taking place in her comfortable home in Dorset Square, to which she had invited me to take tea with her.

  ‘Take care!’ warned Ben that morning at breakfast, after I passed him the note the lady had sent me asking that I come. ‘She wants something.’

  ‘Aunt Parry is a rich woman and there’s nothing she can possibly want from me that she can’t acquire easily for herself,’ I pointed out.

  But I was uneasy. Ben was right, as I was soon to find out.

  The room in Dorset Square was overheated. The windows were tightly sealed, and the lack of air made me sleepy. I’d eaten too many toasted teacakes. It was difficult to make any intelligent conversation; much less stay alert for whatever Mrs Parry was planning. So her next question took me by surprise.

  ‘That police inspector you married, he is occupied with his duties, I dare say?’

  I was a little annoyed, because she always refers to Ben by occupation and not by name. But I agreed that Ben was, as always, very busy.

  ‘And you still employ that maid you took from me when you left my home to set up your own household?’

  I replied that yes, we did. She spoke as if I had lured away a valued servant, but the truth was that Bessie had been a humble kitchenmaid in Dorset Square. Aunt Parry had barely been aware of her existence.

  She tilted forward (her corset did not allow her to bend), and asked in a confidential whisper, ‘Could he spare you for a month?’

  ‘Spare me!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘For a month,’ repeated Aunt Parry, raising her voice a little, as if I were deaf. ‘You still employ the maid and she could look after any household needs for that length of time?’

  ‘No! I mean, not for a month…’

  ‘Three weeks?’ bargained my hostess. She tilted her head to one side as she waited for my answer. Her hair was elaborately dressed and not all of it was her own. Her gown was brightly coloured cobalt-blue with ivory lace trimmings and yellow satin ribbons. It was like being observed by a large exotic bird.

&n
bsp; ‘It would hardly be fair on Ben…’

  She sighed and said crossly, ‘Oh, very well, Elizabeth, two weeks! Although that is hardly any time at all if I am to benefit from the sea air.’

  ‘Oh, you want me to go to the coast with you!’ I exclaimed as I saw the reasoning behind her request.

  ‘Well, yes, Elizabeth. I have been planning a little time by the sea, as I was saying only minutes ago. Were you not paying attention? Unfortunately, I am again without a companion.’

  I had lost count of the number of companions she had engaged and dismissed since my time in that role.

  ‘Oh? I’m sorry to hear that,’ I said. And I was sorry, extremely sorry, because it sounded as if she intended to engage me as a substitute. ‘It would be difficult,’ I protested. ‘Bessie is good at housework; but to run a household is a different matter. She’s an indifferent cook. Besides, when Ben comes home of an evening, he looks forward to a little companionship, someone to discuss his day with—’

  ‘So do I,’ she interrupted. ‘I shall take Nugent with me, of course.’ (Nugent was her long-suffering personal maid.) ‘But she has no conversation. I need a companion, if only for such a short time, and Nugent wouldn’t fill the role at all. The girl, Bessie, can run a little house like yours, surely? And there must be pie shops in the area.’

  I drew a deep breath. ‘Where are you thinking of taking the sea air, Aunt Parry? Brighton?’

  ‘Good heavens, no!’ she exclaimed, raising her pudgy hands in horror. ‘Far too crowded and all manner of people go there nowadays. I blame the railway. They offer cheap tickets for a day’s excursion. Whole families descend on the resort, with babies, small and unruly children, elderly relatives, picnic hampers and all manner of paraphernalia. I have therefore decided to rent a house in a quiet, out-of-the-way spot on the south coast, somewhere that combines the sea air and the rural landscape. I need peace and quiet. I hope you will approve.’

  She fell silent, possibly hoping I’d ask her where this gem of a summer resort might be. But I was determined not to show any enthusiasm for a trip I had no wish to make.

  Suddenly, Mrs Parry looked up at me and beamed. It was such a radiant smile and so unexpected – her usual expression was one of discontent – that I was completely thrown off my guard. That, of course, was her intention.

  ‘Dear Elizabeth,’ she said. ‘You do already know the New Forest area, in Hampshire…’

  I exclaimed in dismay, ‘You cannot possibly suggest I return there? Have you forgotten what happened last time? There was a murder!’

  Aunt Parry shuddered. The various ribbon and bow trimmings on the blue gown all quivered in harmony so that her whole form appeared to shift about like the onset of an earth tremor. She raised her hands, palms outward, and gestured as if she would wipe away some stain.

  ‘There is no need to name the awful event, Elizabeth. Now, I have been offered the use of a delightful property on the shoreline, about a mile away from – from where you were before. The house is the summer retreat of acquaintances of mine, by the name of Hammet. They do not require use of the property for some months. I believe they are to undertake a tour of Italy, even though it means risking the perils of Continental travel. They are delighted to make the house available to us. Disuse does no property any good, so it would suit the Hammets very well to allow me the use of it for as long as I need it.’

  Ah, I was beginning to understand. Though Mrs Parry was now a very rich woman there had been a time when she had been the daughter of an impecunious country curate. The thinking that springs from a thrifty upbringing is hard to shake off. Our accommodation would cost us nothing, other than the food we ate.

  ‘The house,’ she went on, ‘is called The Old Excise House. Years ago, oh, when I was a child and we were at war with Old Boney, smuggling was rife in the area. Well, the house was built by the government of the time, as an office and accommodation for an excise officer, together with somewhere to store confiscated goods. But there is no longer that kind of lawless activity in the area, thank goodness, and so the building was sold off. The Hammets have spent, I’m told, quite a sum of money to turn it into a very comfortable summer home. Moreover, there is a gentleman’s residence nearby, belonging to a Sir Henry Meager, which means you will not be without a neighbour. Mrs Hammet has written to tell him that I shall be coming and he has expressed the hope that we will dine with him during our stay. We shall have some company, Elizabeth. You need not let a lack of it worry you.’

  I said, imprudently, ‘I have heard the name of Sir Henry Meager. I never met the gentleman, but I did meet a family connection of his, when I was there last.’

  ‘You see?’ cried Mrs Parry in delight. ‘You will feel quite at home there!’

  I was now more than annoyed: I was truly angry. It seemed that everything had been thought out and settled before the idea had even been suggested to me. What was more, in confessing I had heard of Sir Henry Meager, I had now sealed the matter by my own unguarded tongue. Oh, why could you not have kept quiet, Lizzie? I told myself.

  Mrs Parry swept on, disregarding my agitation. ‘As for The Old Excise House itself, there is a cook-housekeeper and I am informed there is a quaint but attractive garden. The cook and gardener form a married couple, I understand, living in a small cottage nearby, so everything is provided.’

  She now deigned to recognise my lack of enthusiasm but managed, as ever, to turn it to her advantage. ‘It would do you the world of good, Elizabeth, to come with me. You are looking a little peaky and lacklustre, quite unlike your usual bright spirits. It would be very selfish of Inspector Ross to deny you the opportunity to benefit from the sea air with me. It will be so peaceful, and relaxing, and two weeks,’ concluded Aunt Parry, in minatory tone, ‘is a very little time. I am sure he could spare you for three.’

  Later, I recounted all this to Ben over supper. ‘Of course, I told her it was out of the question. I couldn’t leave you for three weeks alone here with only Bessie to take care of you! You would find Constable Biddle in the kitchen every evening, as the two of them are still walking out. She would be fussing around him and not around you.’

  ‘I don’t think,’ objected Ben mildly, ‘that I want to be fussed around.’

  ‘You know what I mean. I told Aunt Parry it couldn’t be done.’

  Ben leaned back in his chair and surveyed me. ‘Now, don’t mistake my meaning, Lizzie, but perhaps it’s not such a bad idea.’ He raised both hands, palms outward, to ward off my reaction to this unexpected lack of support. ‘I do appreciate most sincerely that you’re concerned for my welfare. But I’m equally concerned for yours.’

  ‘I don’t think being packed off to Hampshire with Aunt Parry and poor Nugent will do any good for my welfare,’ I muttered resentfully. ‘Much less with the only entertainment being the occasional dinner with the local squire followed, no doubt, by cards.’

  ‘Well, I’m not so sure, Lizzie, dear. It has been a very bad winter and you do look a little pale. As pretty as ever, of course,’ he added hastily.

  ‘I am not pretty. I don’t even like the word! It makes me sound vacuous.’

  ‘Handsome, then,’ he amended.

  ‘Thank you. But I still don’t want to leave you here alone. Three weeks, Ben! You with only Bessie’s company of an evening and me with only Aunt Parry to talk to. I shall be incarcerated in an isolated, windswept house, the tide surging in and out inundating the pebble beaches before me, and the heather and gorse of the heathland behind. Add in the dismal cries of gulls overhead… Don’t laugh! No entertainment of any kind, except for the promise of dinner with this old fellow Meager, who is probably soaked in port and suffers from gout.’

  ‘You’ll come back completely reinvigorated,’ Ben insisted. ‘And I do believe we are going to be very busy at the Yard and I shall arrive home late most evenings.’

  ‘But, Ben, you can’t have forgotten what happened the last time I went to that area?’

  ‘Of course not. Bu
t you are going to another house. The owners are about to depart or have already left for Italy. There will be only you, Mrs Parry, Nugent and the husband and wife who form the permanent staff. I don’t think any one of those is likely to be murdered while you are there.’

  ‘I am not so sure,’ I muttered. ‘I might murder Aunt Parry.’

  ‘Oh, you can manage Mrs Parry, my dear,’ said my husband comfortably. ‘You always did so. Only don’t go seeking out mysteries, will you? This will be a pleasant seaside break for you. Keep your detecting instincts under lock and key.’

  ‘Going off to the coast then,’ observed Bessie in the kitchen as we cleared up the supper things. She had obviously been listening in to the conversation with Ben. ‘My, that will be exciting.’

  ‘Will it?’ I muttered. ‘It was exciting the last time I was in the area, but it wasn’t any sort of excitement I relished.’

  ‘Oh, that murder!’ returned Bessie cheerfully. ‘Don’t you worry, missis, lightning don’t ever strike in the same place twice. That’s what they say, isn’t it?’

  ‘They may say it. I am not sure it’s the truth,’ I snapped.

  ‘I can take care of the inspector,’ countered Bessie, undeterred. ‘If that’s what’s worrying you!’ She gave me a sly look. ‘Not like you, missis, to give up the chance of having an adventure.’

  So that is how I came to travel again to the south coast, this time with Mrs Parry and Nugent. Of course, it didn’t work out as relaxing and peaceful as promised. But then, nothing undertaken in the company of Mrs Julia Parry ever did.