Chapter Two
‘If you would be so good as to follow me, sir.’
Jessie composed herself after a fashion and led the way across the narrow hallway into what was obviously the communal dining room. A fresh loaf of bread lay abandoned on a side table next to butter, ham and cheese.
‘You provide breakfast for the tenants?’ Riley asked, pulling out a chair for Jessie which she seemed reluctant to take. At Riley’s urging she eventually perched tentatively on its edge, trembling with nerves and, he suspected, residual shock.
‘Yes, sir. Usually.’ She produced a handkerchief and blew her nose noisily.
Riley sat across from her and offered her a reassuring smile. Jessie was no more than a child. She was afraid of her own shadow and certainly didn’t have the requisite strength to murder a man twice her size. Even so, she probably knew everything that went on inside the walls of this house, and if Riley hoped to extract anything useful from her, he would have to exercise a great deal of patience. ‘You’ve had a terrible shock,’ he said. ‘Would you like a glass of water?’
She looked shocked at the prospect of a gentleman waiting upon her, but Riley’s suggestion had the desired effect. She straightened her shoulders and stopped sniffling. ‘Thank you, sir, but no. Finding the gentlemen was the most awful shock, there’s no denying it.’ She mopped up an errant tear. ‘I ain’t never saw the like and hope I never will again. Who would want to hurt Mr Woodrow? That’s what I can’t understand.’ Now that she’d started to talk, she didn’t seem able to stop. It suited Riley’s purpose, and he didn’t interrupt the disjointed flow. ‘He were that nice to me. Always had time for a kind word or a smile.’
‘Which is why we must find out who did this terrible thing, and I hope you will help me to do that.’
‘Upon my life, sir, I’ll do anything I can. Mr Woodrow was a real gentleman. Not like some as I could name who expect you to fetch and carry for them when it ain’t your job, and never so much as a word of thanks.’
‘You live in?’
‘Yes, sir. I have a room in the attic. I clean all the rooms, make the beds and arrange for their laundry to be done.’
‘And prepare breakfast too?’
‘Only for Mr Langston and Mr Crawford. It’s not part of my duties, but they pay me extra for it. They both leave early because they have work to go to. Miss Ogden and Mr Woodrow don’t worry about breakfast. Neither of them gets up before noon. Mr Woodrow is always that busy, flitting here and there until all hours...well, he was… He told me once that his services were always in demand.’ She chuckled. ‘He did so enjoy his little joke, did Mr Woodrow. Anyway, Miss Ogden…well, she’s a singer and she’s at the theatre most nights so she sleeps in too and doesn’t like to be disturbed.’
Riley smothered his surprise, remembering his first impression of the lady he’d seen in the parlour. A singer implied music hall and a music hall entertainer would not earn enough to pay the high rents commanded by this auspicious address. At a glance, Miss Ogden had looked to be well into her thirties and would not have stood out in a crowd. Past her prime, in other words, and unlikely to be mistress material. Perhaps she had private means. It would not to do pre-judge the lady’s circumstances, Riley reminded himself. He didn’t think the crime had been committed by a woman, but it could well have been commissioned by one. A natural and charming flirt of Woodrow’s ilk was bound to have created resentments and jealousies along the way.
‘You come down in the mornings by the back stairs?’ he asked, returning his wandering thoughts to Jessie.
‘Yes, sir. Always. I wouldn’t presume to do otherwise, upon my life I would not.’
‘I would imagine you don’t go up to clean and tidy for the gentlemen until after they have left for work.’
‘Absolutely not!’ She bridled at the implication but didn’t seem especially shocked by it. Her reaction was all for show. Young as she was, a pretty little thing like Jessie was probably accustomed to being propositioned. Whether or not she gave way to temptation, Riley had yet to decide. Not that it mattered—provided of course that she had not been intimately involved with Woodrow. ‘I only do what I gets paid for.’
Which was precisely Riley’s point, albeit an unworthy one. Sadly, Riley himself got paid to think the worst of everyone, and it was a hard habit to break. ‘How did you come to discover the body, if you were down here preparing breakfast?’
‘Well sir, it was Miss Ogden. She didn’t have a performance last night but did have an engagement early this morning. She asked me to wake her, so I took her up a cup of tea right after going out for bread. And…well, that’s when I found him.’
And dropped the cup, no doubt, accounting for the dampness he’d noticed on the carpet runner immediately outside Woodrow’s room. Of the cup and saucer there had been no sign. Presumably Jessie had collected them—or cleared up the broken china—as soon as she’d recovered her wits. ‘Explain what you saw. Was his door open?’
‘Yes, sir, it were. That’s what was so strange, and why I stopped to look. Mr Woodrow was very particular about his privacy. He had ever such nice things and didn’t like anyone going near them without his permission. I thought maybe he’d come home even later than usual and was…well, you know how gentlemen can be, sir. They do like their brandy and sometimes don’t know when they’ve had enough. He could have been insensible with drink, it which case I would have helped him.’ She sniffed. ‘Only one look at his staring eyes and that dreadful swollen tongue told me he was beyond help.’
‘So you looked round the door, saw Mr Woodrow and had the presence of mind to run outside and find a policeman. Well done!’
Jessie beamed. ‘Like I say, I knew at once he was dead and it gave me a right turn.’ She shuddered. ‘Who would do such a thing?’
‘That is what I hope to find out, with your help.’ Riley shifted his position on the uncomfortable wooden chair. ‘Do you know what time Mr Woodrow got home last night, or this morning? Think carefully, Jessie, it could be vital.’
She screwed up her features, but in frustration rather than through the effort of trying to recall a stray memory, since she answered without pausing. ‘I really couldn’t say. My room is at the back in the attic and I sleep like the dead. I do know that he’s always late. Always the last in. Sometimes he doesn’t come home until I’m making breakfast for the other gentlemen and then he would wink at me, tell me he’d had a grand old time and sometimes take a cup of tea before going to his rooms.’
‘Did he ever bring anyone back with him?’
Jessie shook her head. ‘Not as far as I know. Like I say, he was fiercely private.’
‘The furnishings in his rooms, he supplied them himself?’
‘Oh yes, sir. All the rooms are let unfurnished, but Mr Woodrow did his up better than all the others.’
‘Who owns this house, Jessie?’
‘Beg pardon, sir?’ She looked at him in evident confusion.
‘Who pays your wages?’
‘Oh, an agency in Oxford Street, that’s all I know.’
Riley thought it very likely was, so he thanked her and was about to send her on her way when another question occurred to him.
‘Mr Woodrow has a handsome decanter on his sideboard but there were only four glasses with it.’
‘Oh no, sir, that can’t be right. There are definitely six. I wash them for Mr Woodrow when they’ve been used and he impresses upon me the importance of taking great care. Lead crystal of that quality chips easily, you see, despite it being so heavy, and it would be an awful shame to damage the set. He said as much himself more than once.’
‘Thank you, Jessie, you have been a great help. You can return to your duties but please avoid Mr Woodrow’s rooms for the time being.’
She shuddered and assured him that she had no desire to go anywhere near them.
Salter joined him at that point with a disappointingly small sheaf of papers tucked under his arm. ‘Couldn’t find nothing else, sir, sorry. I gathered up all them invitation cards, just in case you want to see if you can decide which one he accepted.’
Riley would be able to find out where Woodrow had spent his last evening easily enough. The upper classes were no strangers to gossip and once word of his death got out that information would find its way to him, very likely through the good offices of his mother.
‘We will look through those documents back at the Yard.’ Riley quickly updated his sergeant on what Jessie had had to tell him.
‘You believe her?’
‘Woodrow had cultivated her good opinion. She’s a pretty young thing, and he wouldn’t have been able to help himself. But I don’t think it went beyond that. He simply deployed his customary charm to ensure that he was well looked after. She made a point of emphasising that he protected his privacy, though.’
‘Perhaps he knew his life was under threat.’
‘Possibly.’ Riley sighed. ‘Go and wheel the next resident in. One of the men. They have work to go to. Miss Ogden had an engagement this morning, which she will have missed by now, I dare say, so she can wait until last.’
The elder of the two male tenants returned with Salter. His name was John Crawford, and he informed Riley that he was employed in a managerial capacity at Waterloo Railway station. A man of forty, he confirmed that he had never been married and had risen to the top of his profession through hard work and dedication, accounting no doubt for his ability to afford the rent on his rooms in this house. Rooms on the second floor wouldn’t be as grand as Woodrow’s, but that was not the point. Through his own endeavours, he enjoyed the advantages of a prestigious address, which was probably all that mattered to him.
‘I shall try not to keep you for long, since I am conscious that you have work waiting for you. What can you tell me about Woodrow?’ Riley asked briskly.
‘Not a great deal, Inspector. We exchanged civilities if we passed on the stairs, but other than that I barely knew the man. We come from different walks of life and had little in common. He was out and about every night, mixing with his own class, whereas I am ordinarily in bed and asleep by ten.’
‘He didn’t spend any time in the communal rooms here on the ground floor?’ Salter asked.
‘Lord, no! Dudley and I often indulge in a glass or two of sherry and a game of cards of a night, but Woodrow…Not a chance. Not his idea of fun, I don’t suppose. I got the impression that he preferred the fairer sex.’
‘Did you ever see him with anyone else? I am curious to know how you reached that conclusion.’
‘One gets to understand people in my line of work, Inspector. Woodrow was a handsome and well-connected single gentleman. It stands to reason…’ He allowed his words to trail off, clearly thinking he had made his point.
‘Did visitors ever call here to see Woodrow?’
‘If they did then I never saw them. Sorry, Inspector, but like I say, I barely knew the man and have absolutely no idea who would want to kill him.’
Riley believed him, thanked him for his time and asked him to get in touch if he thought of anything that might help with the investigation. ‘Please ask Mr Langston to join us,’ he said.
Langston, a tall, skinny man with red hair and whiskers, looked to be a few years younger than Crawford. He too confirmed that he had never married and enjoyed a position as a senior civil servant. He reiterated Crawford’s impressions of Woodrow almost word for word. He had barely spoken to him either and knew nothing about his activities.
‘I did see him once in the park,’ he said. ‘He was with a lady, but then that came as no great surprise. He had an eye for a pretty girl, that much was obvious to me.’
‘I get the impression that our friend Woodrow didn’t like to associate with men who do an honest day’s work,’ Salter said scathingly, having thanked Langston and asked him to send Miss Ogden in.
‘Distant and remote is the impression I’m left with,’ Riley replied. ‘Yet Jessie sang his praises. It will be interesting to see if Miss Ogden does, too.’
Salter grunted, confirming Riley’s original impression that his straight-laced sergeant disapproved of Woodrow’s lifestyle. Riley did too in many respects but wouldn’t allow his private views to cloud his judgement. ‘He appealed to the ladies, obviously.’
‘Keep an open mind, Jack,’ Riley chastised as the door opened to admit Miss Ogden. Both men stood, and Salter held a chair until she had settled herself in it.
‘I apologise for keeping you waiting, Miss Ogden,’ Riley said politely. ‘It was no incivility on my part, but more a case of priorities.’
‘I understand perfectly, Inspector. Those two gentlemen have work to get to. Either that or you do not consider me a suspect,’ she added on a lighter note.
‘Unfortunately, ma’am, I am paid to have a suspicious mind—but, if it’s any consolation, you don’t look like the criminal type to me.’
She gave a half smile and fanned her face with the side of her hand. ‘I am relieved to hear you say so.’
‘I understand you had an early engagement this morning and we have made you miss it, for which I apologise.’
‘No apology necessary. I had an audition but as soon as I realised what had happened here I knew you would want to talk to me, so I sent a boy with a note to explain. It has been rearranged for this afternoon. A man has lost his life, and your investigation into the circumstances must naturally take priority.’
‘I wish all our witnesses were so obliging,’ Salter muttered.
‘You are a singer, I understand,’ Riley said.
Miss Ogden’s smile became strained and she seemed a little irritated, as evidenced by the tic below one eye and the straightening of her shoulders. ‘Clearly, you have been speaking with Jessie. She is an obliging girl but makes me sound like a third-rate music hall act.’ She sat a little straighter still and folded her rather large hands in her lap. ‘In actual fact, I am a soprano with the Royal English Opera Company.’
Riley inclined his head, feeling guilty for having reached the exact same conclusion that Miss Ogden had just attributed to Jessie. But still, at least Riley now knew how she afforded her rent.
‘Tell me about Mr Woodrow,’ he said. ‘Your rooms were on the same floor as his, so presumably you saw something of him, which is more than can be said for the other tenants.’
Miss Ogden smiled. ‘We passed the time of day quite often, as it happens.’
‘In his rooms?’ Salter asked.
‘No, ordinarily in mine, but not in the manner that you suppose, Sergeant. Rod was a handsome man and knew it. He didn’t take that sort of interest in a plain woman who was older than him and, frankly, couldn’t enhance his prospects. Had I been wealthy…well, who knows.’
‘You think he took advantage of people?’ Riley asked.
‘Don’t we all in some way or another? Life doesn’t owe anyone a living. Anyway, he was impressed by my career and took an interest in whatever production we were performing. I sometimes thought he quizzed me because he wanted to impress his social circle with his knowledge, but he did it so charmingly that I really didn’t mind. I did actually wonder if he was angling for complimentary tickets but he wasn’t so gauche as to ask directly. Besides, I saw him several times at the theatre in very illustrious company. He clearly needed no help from me.’
‘Did he ever have visitors here? Family? Friends?’
‘No one I ever saw. Sorry.’
‘Did he express any concerns about his safety?’ Riley persisted. ‘You appear to be the only person in this house who knew him at all, so if he confided in anyone…’
Miss Ogden shook her head before Riley finished asking the question. ‘Sorry, but Rod always seemed perfectly relaxed. In my opinion, he had yet to grow up and treated life as one big game. He was one of those happy individuals who possessed the capacity to live life from day to day and enjoy it without worrying about the future.’
‘How long have you resided in this house?’ Riley asked.
‘About a year. I served as understudy to the company’s leading soprano for years. Then she left abruptly under something of a cloud and my turn finally came. I’d lived prudently up until that point and so thought…well, why not revel in the fruits of my labours and move to a safer part of town?’
‘Why not indeed?’ Riley smiled at her. ‘Was Mr Woodrow already here when you moved in?’
‘Yes, he’d been here for a year himself at that point.’
‘Now then, Miss Ogden, can you recall what time Mr Woodrow arrived home? It would have been in the early hours, I dare say. Your rooms are on the same floor as his, so I hope you will be able to help us narrow down the time frame.’
‘I wish I could, Inspector, really I do and normally I would be in a position to do so. I often heard him stumbling about when he arrived home in his cups. Men have no knowledge of stealth, I’m afraid.’ She smiled to take the sting out of her words. ‘But last night I had no performance and today’s audition to prepare for. I am a light sleeper so I took a sleeping draft that the doctor prescribed for me, which is why I asked Jessie to wake me in plenty of time to prepare for my big day. Sometimes that medication makes me sleep for fifteen hours, you see, and so I couldn’t take that chance.’
‘You were not woken by voices, arguing perhaps, or any sort of commotion?’
She shook her head. Riley disguised his disappointment by thanking her for helping them.
‘I’m not certain what help I actually was, Inspector,’ she replied, standing. ‘Rod had his faults. He was selfish and thought himself better than the rest of us. Well, he was, I suppose, given his connections. You are aware of them, I presume?’ Riley nodded. ‘Makes you wonder why he chose to live here, though, given that his family have a large house a stone’s throw away. Perhaps they didn’t approve of his activities. I asked him once but he prevaricated and I never did get a straight answer. He was very good at turning the conversation back onto the concerns of his questioner if there was something he didn’t want that person to know. In your line of work you will be aware that people ordinarily like nothing more than to talk about themselves. Rod had a way of appearing interested, even if he was bored rigid, and encouraged them to do so.’
‘Well,’ Salter said, closing the door behind the obliging Miss Ogden, ‘all our witnesses have been forthright, which makes a pleasant change, but we haven’t learned anything we didn’t know before speaking to them.’ He frowned. ‘Did you believe them, sir?’
‘I did, Jack. I knew Woodrow, remember, and I am sure he wouldn’t have wanted to be too intimate with his fellow tenants. We will look into their backgrounds, naturally, but on the face of it I cannot see them having any reason to want him dead, or to risk carrying out the deed for that matter.’ Riley rubbed his chin. ‘I am more interested in the source of his wealth, so we will have to search through those papers you found. But we’ll do that later. First, we had best take ourselves to Woodrow House in Islington and break the news. It will not stay secret for long and I would prefer them to hear it from us, if only so that we can gauge their reaction.’
‘Right you are. What do you want Carter and Soames to do?’
‘Get them to borrow Jessie’s keys. Just for the sake of thoroughness I need them to do a sweep of the rooms of the other tenants. Miss Ogden will be in hers now so they’d best wait until she leaves for her audition. But I dare say that the two gentlemen will have already left for their work. I don’t want it to be obvious that anyone has been through their things. They are simply looking for anything to connect them to Woodrow. Those two missing whisky glasses bother me. Why anyone would take them is beyond me, but Jessie assures me there have always been six, so I feel their absence is significant.’
‘Those two on the top floor aspire to better themselves,’ Salter said with a reflective nod, ‘and think it worth shelling out in order to boast this address, so possessing something of that quality might appeal to them. Still an’ all, it would be a foolish thing to do. Taking them, I mean, and then leaving them on open display. It’s the sort of behaviour that could get a man hanged. Besides, why take just two? They would have done better to take the decanter and all the glasses. We wouldn’t have known any different and your suspicions would not have been aroused.’
‘Unless our killer acted on impulse and didn’t think the implications through. Given that he’d just murdered Woodrow, non-clarity of thought is not to be wondered at.’
‘Either that or he didn’t think anyone investigating would notice the anomaly.’ Salter nodded as he spoke. ‘I wouldn’t have, come to that. Only someone like you, guv, what understands the importance of these things would have seen it.’
‘Perhaps, but whether my keen eye will get us any further forward is a matter of conjecture.’
‘You think one of them just might have done it, explaining how he came to be in Woodrow’s rooms, waiting to confront him?’
Riley shook his head. ‘Unlikely that he broke in. If he did, Woodrow would hardly have had a drink with him.’
‘If he did.’
‘Two missing glasses.’ Riley mused. ‘And no sign of a break-in. Whoever was in that room was invited in, and if Woodrow was barely acquainted with his fellow tenants he wouldn’t entertain either one of them, especially not in the early hours. Everyone says he was fiercely protective of his privacy, and only Jessie seems to have crossed his threshold on a regular basis. If he could have borne to look after himself, I don’t suppose she would have been permitted inside either, but at least he was confident that she wouldn’t dare to snoop. He made sure of that by keeping her sweet with smiles and a few flirtatious words. It would have been enough to make a trusting girl like Jessie worship at his feet. You saw for yourself how upset she was, and her reaction was the result of more than just the shock of having found him.’
‘Silly little thing,’ Salter said.
‘I have another task for Carter and Soames once they’ve finished here. You heard Crawford say that a firm of letting agents in Oxford Street deal with this property. They arrange the tenancies on behalf of the owners, collect the rents, pay Jessie and so forth. You made a note of the address?’ Salter nodded. ‘None of the tenants knows who owns the property, but I would like to find out. It might be significant. If someone was lying in wait for Woodrow, then that someone was either the most efficient lock-picker north of the river or had a key. Talking of keys, did you find Woodrow’s?’
Salter scratched his head. ‘Now that you mention it, we didn’t.’
‘Interesting…’
‘Perhaps the killer needed them to let himself out the main front door.’
‘But he didn’t close Woodrow’s door when he fled?’ Riley shook his head. ‘It’s damned odd.’
‘I think I know why you’re interested in the owners,’ Salter said. ‘You think Woodrow might have struggled to pay the rent, or perhaps he didn’t actually pay any. The owner might have a connection to Woodrow’s family, or a personal connection to Woodrow himself and let him stay here rent-free.’
‘That is what I hope Carter and Soames will find out for us.’
‘Right-ho. I’ll go and give them your instructions, sir, then we can go to Islington.’
‘I want Peterson and Harper to stay here. No one who doesn’t have business in this house is to be allowed in. And I want the names of anyone who does come sniffing around. It won’t be the first time that a murderer has returned to the scene of the crime to admire his handiwork.’
Salter nodded and went off to make the necessary arrangements.