Read The Detective Branch Online
Authors: Andrew Pepper
Tags: #London (England) - History - 1800-1950, #Mystery & Detective, #Pyke (Fictitious Character: Pepper), #Pyke (Fictitious Character : Pepper), #Fiction, #General, #Mystery Fiction, #Historical, #Traditional British, #Suspense, #Crime
The Detective Branch (28 page)
Wells visited him at about eight and then again just before eleven. He had nothing to report. It was strange, Pyke thought once he was alone, to be disappointed that no one had died; that no one had been murdered. At midnight, he pulled his coat around him and shut his eyes. He woke at two and then again at four. At half-past six, he got up and went outside to the tap in the yard. He’d intended to wash his face but the water in the pipe had frozen. Everywhere was white, any noise muffled by the covering of snow. At eight, when the first clerks arrived, Pyke’s suspicions were confirmed: nothing out of the ordinary had occurred during the night. A flower seller had frozen to death in Covent Garden and a tanner’s assistant had been stabbed and wounded in a brawl outside a tavern in Bermondsey. These would have to be looked into by either the Detective Branch or whichever division had jurisdiction for central and south-east London, but Pyke didn’t pay the cases any attention that morning. Instead, he paced up and down the corridor, wondering what had happened and how he had managed to get it so wrong.
By Wednesday afternoon, almost two days after the night of the thirteenth of December had passed, there was still no sign of a body. During this time Pyke had tried unsuccessfully to find Malloy and had been told by Mayne to give up on his ‘far-flung notion’ and concentrate his efforts on finding Hiley. In one ill-tempered meeting, an evidently furious Mayne had held Pyke personally responsible for his ‘reckless’ prediction that a murder would take place, and had berated himself for lending his support to Pyke in the first place.
‘How long would it take for someone to die if they were crucified?’ Pyke asked Whicher and Lockhart.
They were sitting in the main office drinking tea that one of the clerks had just brought for them.
‘It wouldn’t be immediate,’ Lockhart said. ‘That’s the point, isn’t it? To draw it out for as long as possible and inflict the most pain.’
Whicher looked at him, frowning. ‘Are you saying that our body may still be out there somewhere?’
‘Not exactly. Stephen Clough was stabbed, too, remember? That was the wound that killed him, according to the coroner.’
‘So?’
‘So why go to the effort of crucifying someone, only to stab them in the gut?’
Lockhart considered this. ‘Perhaps the crucifixion was some kind of symbolic act.’
‘In what sense?’ Pyke asked.
‘I don’t know.’ Lockhart brought the cup to his lips and sipped his tea. ‘To make it
appear
that the murder was religiously motivated?’
appear
that the murder was religiously motivated?’
Whicher sat back. ‘Clough was nailed to a door in a busy part of the city. Maybe he was stabbed as an afterthought. If the murderer had just left him to die, Clough might have been able to identify him.’
They were both credible explanations.
‘What if the second death we’ve been expecting wasn’t reported to the police? Look at these.’ Eddie Lockhart showed Pyke the death notices he’d been reading in
The Times
. ‘Five of them, all from natural causes.’
The Times
. ‘Five of them, all from natural causes.’
‘If they all died from natural causes, I don’t see how they could be of any interest to us.’ Pyke yawned. He’d hardly slept in the past forty-eight hours.
‘But that’s just it. How do we know for certain that all these people did die of natural causes? Do you see my point?’
‘Anyone who dies in suspicious circumstances has to be seen by the coroner. You can’t just put someone in the ground.’
Lockhart shrugged. ‘It was just an idea.’
But it was the only idea any of them had had and so Pyke sent Lockhart and Whicher to collect a list from the coroners of everyone who had died in suspicious circumstances since Monday. They came back with three names. A retired bank clerk from Somers Town called Willis, who had stepped out in front of a fast-moving phaeton, a sanitary inspector from Walworth who’d died in his bed, and a bank director and alderman who’d collapsed suddenly and without explanation at his place of work. In addition, four still-unidentified men and women had frozen to death as a result of the cold weather.
Pyke asked whether there was any more information about the alderman. Lockhart shook his head.
‘Was the death reported in the newspaper?’
Frowning, Whicher went to retrieve
The Times
from his desk. ‘There was something, I believe.’ He looked through the copy he’d been reading earlier in the day but couldn’t find any mention of it. But when he retrieved the previous day’s newspaper from a pile under his desk, he found what he’d been looking for. He handed it to Pyke, open at the relevant page. There were few details about the death itself. Seemingly the man in question, Charles Harcourt Hogarth, had been working alone in his private chambers and had suffered a seizure or stroke. His body had been found the following morning by one of the porters. Pyke read on:
The Times
from his desk. ‘There was something, I believe.’ He looked through the copy he’d been reading earlier in the day but couldn’t find any mention of it. But when he retrieved the previous day’s newspaper from a pile under his desk, he found what he’d been looking for. He handed it to Pyke, open at the relevant page. There were few details about the death itself. Seemingly the man in question, Charles Harcourt Hogarth, had been working alone in his private chambers and had suffered a seizure or stroke. His body had been found the following morning by one of the porters. Pyke read on:
Charles Harcourt Hogarth, 55, was the second son of John Harcourt Hogarth. Educated at Eton college, he entered his father’s engineering firm at the age of eighteen. In 1808 he was admitted as a partner in the contracting firm Lovell and Lyne under whose stewardship the London to Sittingbourne and London to Epsom turnpikes were macadamised and part of the Regent’s canal was built. In 1820 he joined the board of the Regent-Colonial Bank and, in 1829, he was invited to join the City Corporation as a councilman. In 1835 he was elected for life to a Court of Aldermen which he served until his death and was thought to be a future candidate for the position of Lord Mayor. In his role as court Alderman, he was responsible for improving the state of the City of London’s roads and pavements and more recently he had spoken of the need to establish public baths and washhouses in the capital, the first of which is due to be founded in Goulston Square, Whitechapel. Charles Harcourt Hogarth is survived by his wife, Helen, and their children, Mark and George.
Putting down the newspaper, Pyke looked at Lockhart and then Whicher. ‘Go back to the coroner, find out exactly what happened and where the body is now.’
They returned about two hours later, and told Pyke that the coroner had confirmed the cause of death as a massive heart seizure and that the body had been taken to the family home in Chelsea in anticipation of the funeral, which was planned for the end of the week.
‘He was nervous, though,’ Whicher said. ‘Especially when he realised it was Hogarth, and not the others, we wanted to talk about.’
‘By the end, he was sweating like a pig,’ Lockhart added.
‘Do you think he was trying to hide something?’
‘It was hard to tell.’ Lockhart looked over at Whicher. ‘You know anything about this man, Hogarth?’
‘A man in his fifties, an alderman who’s probably eaten and drunk too well, keels over at his desk.’ Whicher said. ‘It happens all the time.’
‘True, but aren’t you sufficiently curious to want to pay the family a visit?’ Pyke rose from his seat. ‘Anyone want to join me?’
Charles Harcourt Hogarth may have inherited his wealth and business from his father but everything about his mansion and indeed his widow suggested new rather than old money. With its pillars, porticos and pediments all designed in the classical style, the property, situated just off the King’s Road, screamed ‘parvenu’ even to someone like Pyke, who wasn’t especially knowledgeable about architectural styles. It was as if someone had built the house with the sole intention of impressing others; the white stone walls, the smooth, marble floors, the statues in the entrance hall, all testament to the owner’s relentlessly upward mobility. Eventually, when the butler finally granted Pyke and Whicher five minutes with the lady of the house, they saw that Helen Hogarth conformed to the same maxim: she was wearing black, of course, but the style of her dress and the cut of the fabric were remorselessly fashionable. As befitted someone who hadn’t been born into wealth, Helen Hogarth treated the two of them with palpable disdain. She shook their hands as though the act itself were a violation of her bodily purity, and as soon as Pyke asked about her late husband, she informed them, with a haughty, almost fey flick of her hand, that she
couldn’t possibly
answer any questions about her
darling
Charles, especially since the funeral was still so fresh in her mind.
couldn’t possibly
answer any questions about her
darling
Charles, especially since the funeral was still so fresh in her mind.
‘Do you mean that the funeral has already taken place?’ Pyke looked over at Whicher, unable to contain his surprise.
She looked at him with a puzzled expression. ‘That’s
exactly
what I mean, sir.’
exactly
what I mean, sir.’
‘But it was my understanding, madam, that your husband only passed away two nights ago.’
‘And?’
‘It was always my understanding that the arrangements for such affairs always took at least a week.’
They were sitting in the parlour and the butler and another servant were hovering near by.
She smiled blandly. ‘I could ask what business is it of yours how I or my family choose to conduct our private affairs.’ The rictus smile started to fade. ‘But since you’ve come here as a representative of the law, I’ll say only this. Charles had always talked about wanting a small, private family funeral. As such, I saw no reason for dillydallying. The parish church was able to accommodate the funeral and dear Charles was laid to rest in the family’s mausoleum at the London and Westminster cemetery.’
‘But the coroner’s inquest often takes a couple of days to arrange . . .’
Helen Hogarth nodded, her expression almost pained. ‘Yes, I suppose we were fortunate that he was able to expedite things a little.’
Still thrown by her revelation, Pyke said, ‘It’s Wednesday. Your husband died on Monday and he’s already been buried. Do you see why I’m a little puzzled?’
Her face hardened. ‘No, not really. I made a decision that I felt was in the best interests of my family and my dear, departed husband. Now you come to my house and imply that I’ve done something wrong.’
‘Not wrong, madam. Just a little unusual. The coroner indicated that your husband died of a cardiac seizure. Is that correct?’
‘If that is what the coroner said, sir, why ask me?’
‘I’m not disputing the coroner’s findings. I’m just wondering how he was able to arrive at this conclusion. Perhaps your husband had a long history of chest pains?’
That drew an exasperated sigh. ‘Can you please tell me the purpose of these questions, sir? Are you suggesting that my husband might have done something wrong?’
‘Not at all . . .’
Helen Hogarth cut him off. ‘Because he was a gentle, law-abiding man and I would be greatly concerned if I felt his reputation was being unfairly impugned.’
‘I’m not suggesting anything of the sort.’ Pyke waited for a moment or two then smiled. ‘It’s just there are some procedural irregularities that still require an explanation.’
‘Such as?’
‘For a start, as I understand it, there was no official inquest. In circumstances where the cause of death isn’t absolutely self-evident, a jury is required to deliberate on the evidence.’
‘Who said the cause of death wasn’t self-evident?’
‘Your husband collapsed in his office. I’m sorry for being so blunt, but what’s to say he wasn’t poisoned?’
That drew an irritated frown. ‘But why would anyone want to poison my dear Charles? Anyway, I was told the coroner declared it to be a cardiac seizure.’
‘Exactly my point, madam. The coroner made this decision, not a doctor.’
Helen Hogarth pulled her shawl around her shoulders and shook her head. ‘Really, sir, I’m quite at a loss to understand your interest in my husband’s death.’
‘I mean no disrespect, madam.’ Pyke glanced over at Whicher and got up, as if to leave. ‘You’ve been very helpful. Please excuse our intrusion and accept our sincere condolences.’
That seemed to placate her a little, although, on reflection, Pyke felt that her indignation had been too demonstrable, too forced.
Outside, their driver was waiting for them but another carriage had pulled up and two policemen in uniform stepped out. They introduced themselves as Sergeant Russell and Constable Watkinson from the Kensington Division and asked Pyke and Whicher what had brought them to the Hogarth residence. Pyke showed the men his warrant card.
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