Kerridge swung round in a fury. “Hasn’t the pathologist examined this body?”
“Didn’t seem no rush,” said the attendant. “Prison doctor signed the death certificate. Suicide.”
“I’ll get the pathologist to do a proper autopsy,” said Kerridge. “We’d better get over to Pentonville and find out if he had any visitors.”
♦
But at the prison they were informed that no one had come to see Biles. The warder who had taken him his evening meal said he looked distraught and that he had been crying.
“Where had be been living?” asked Harry when they left the prison.
“Place down the Mile End Road.”
“I’d like to go there.”
“Why? The room’s been cleaned up. The landlord wants to re-let it.”
“Just a look.”
“Oh, very well. Your man can drive us there.”
♦
The landlord reluctantly opened the door of what had been Jeffrey Biles’s last address. “Don’t go mucking around,” he said. “I got someone for this room.”
“Mind your manners,” snapped Kerridge.
The room was dismal. The dingy window which overlooked the street did not have any curtains. There was a narrow iron bedstead in one corner. A rickety table and one chair stood in the middle of the floor. A small fireplace surmounted by a grimy mirror was against one wall. Beside the fireplace stood a scuttle full of coal and a shovel and poker.
“He might have hidden something,” murmured Harry.
“Don’t think so. We even looked up the chimney.”
“Did you raise the floorboards?”
“Captain, we had our man. And look at the floorboards. Not obviously haven’t any of them been raised in years but neither have they been cleaned in years. I hate the smell in these lice-infested tenements. It sticks to my clothes. Let’s go.”
“A few minutes.”
“Then I’ll wait downstairs in the motor with your man. Don’t be long.”
Harry stood, gazing about him. The roar of the traffic on the Mile End Road reverberated through the little room: the clop of horses’ hooves, the growl of brewers’ drays, the rumble of omnibuses and the curses of drivers.
He looked thoughtfully at the coal scuttle. Odd to see a scuttle full of coal in such an impoverished room. But Jeffrey had found enough money to go to France and follow them to Scotland. Perhaps he had pawned some of the jewels he had stolen from his sister.
The landlord appeared in the doorway. “Finished?”
“No,” said Harry crossly. “Go away. No, wait a minute. I’m surprised you have supplied a full scuttle of coal.”
“That was Mr Biles’s. I meant to take it away but the new tenant, he says to leave it, and since no one else wanted to rent a room where a murderer had been living, I had to promise to let him have the coal.”
“Good. Go away and don’t come back until I call you.”
Harry waited until he heard the landlord’s feet descending the staircase and then he began to lift the coal out piece by piece and lay it on the floor. At the bottom of the coal scuttle was a tin box.
Harry went to the window and threw it up and called down to Kerridge. “You’d better get up here quickly.”
When Kerridge arrived, Harry said, “I’ve found this box. It was under the coal. I want you as witness when I open it.” He wiped the coal dust from his hands with a handkerchief, lifted the box out and took it to the table.
“It’s locked,” he said. He took out a lock pick and worked away until the lid sprang open.
On top lay a sapphire necklace and a ruby necklace. “Those are the items that were missing from his sister’s jewel box,” said Kerridge. Harry lifted them out. Underneath were photographs of Jeffrey and his sister, two East End children. There was a photograph of a grocer’s shop with a stern-looking man standing in front of it. “That must be the father,” said Harry. “Is he dead?”
“Yes, died some time ago.”
“And what’s this?”
Harry took out a folded piece of paper. He gently unfolded it. In a large round hand was written, “This is the Last Will and Testament of Elizabeth Biles, 19 Sordey Street, Whitechapel. I leave everything I have to my dear brother, Jeffrey.” It was signed and dated and witnessed. The date showed that Dolores had probably written it just before she fled to France.
“So there’s the motive,” said Kerridge. “That would have been legal enough, and with Madame de Peurey out of the way, he could have got the lot.”
“I’m puzzled,” said Harry. “What did you make of Jeffrey Biles?”
“Weak, frightened – but then a lot of killers are like that after they are caught.”
“It’s beginning to look as if someone might have faked Jeffrey’s suicide. Now, perhaps we have a murderer at large who put Jeffrey up to all this. Say, someone said to him, ‘I’ll kill your sister and when you inherit, you pay me so much.’”
“Come on. All the evidence is against Jeffrey Biles. He did his damnedest to pin the murders on Lady Rose. He was in his sister’s house. He took the letters and he took the jewellery.”
“I wonder if he wrote those threatening letters,” said Harry, “or if someone else did.”
“You’re making work for me and there’s no need for it. I’ve wasted enough time on this already,” complained Kerridge.
“Humour me. Look, written on the back of this photograph is ‘Me and Betty’. The handwriting looks adult, so he must have written that sometime after the photographs were taken. Why not get some expert to compare it with the handwriting on the threatening letters?”
“Oh, anything for peace and quiet. I’ll take this box with me.”
“Wait a minute. I want to copy down the names of the witnesses on that will.”
Harry wrote down George Briggs, driver, and Sarah Briggs, laundress. “We’ll take you back to Scotland Yard first,” said Harry.
♦
Kerridge was silent on the drive back. He wished with all his heart that Harry had left well enough alone. His boss would be furious with him. Dolores Duval had been a tart, and that put her in the category of we-don’t-care-what-happened-so-long-as-we-can-wrap-up-the-case.
But according to his political beliefs, the lowest in the land were deserving of proper police work just as the highest. He would do what Harry had requested. He insisted Harry follow him to his office to make a statement about finding the box and detailing what it contained.
While Harry was making his statement, Becket went to a phone box and called Daisy.
“Is this what our life is going to be like?” complained Daisy. “I’ve been mostly alone all day. What have you been doing?”
Becket told her that he had taken Harry to Jeffrey’s old address, how he had found a box there and how he had heard Kerridge grumble that Harry did not believe that Jeffrey had committed the murders.
“What does Jeffrey say?” asked Daisy.
“Nothing. He hanged himself in his cell. He was going to tell Kerridge something important this morning, but when Kerridge arrived, he was already dead. The captain doesn’t think it’s suicide; he thinks it’s murder. I’d better go. We’ll talk tonight.”
“If you ever come home,” said Daisy.
Daisy then phoned Rose and told her the latest findings.
“I wish we could do some detecting like we did before,” said Rose. “I mean, if Jeffrey didn’t do it, who did? I know: If you can find out from Becket the address of that grocer’s shop that their father owned, we could start there. I’ll tell Mama that we are going down the East End to perform charitable works. She’ll agree because she thinks that sort of thing will rehabilitate me in the eyes of society. Come round tomorrow morning.”
♦
It was an hour before Harry came out of Scotland Yard and joined Becket. The lamps along the Embankment had been lit and the Thames gleamed an oily black as it slid past on its way to the sea.