Part 21 (1/2)
The trouble began when they motored through a village and a pretty girl stared at the car in open-mouthed admiration.
When they were clear of the village and Berrow saw a long straight stretch of road ahead, he called, ”Stop!” Berrow had become jealous of Cyril at the wheel.
Cyril pulled to a halt. ”What's up?”
”Let me take the wheel for a bit.”
”You can't drive.”
”Show me. Just how to move it along.”
”Oh, all right.” Cyril got out and they changed places.
After several attempts and cras.h.i.+ng gears, Berrow managed to get the car to move forward. He pressed his foot down on the accelerator. Although the speed limit was thirty miles an hour, the Rolls was capable of doing a hundred.
Hedges hurtled past in a blur as Cyril screamed, ”Ease off the accelerator!”
”What?” shouted Berrow. ”This is fun.”
As he hurtled down a bend in the road and straight at a hump-backed bridge, his scarf blew across his face. Panicking, Cyril grabbed the wheel. With a great crash, the car hit the parapet sideways on. The ancient stonework crumpled. Cyril was catapulted onto the river bank. He hit a stone with the full impact of his head and lay still.
Berrow stared down at him in horror. ”Are you all right?” he called, but he was sure Cyril was dead.
He felt the car lurch. He got out carefully and went and looked at the damage. The wheels were hanging over the edge where the parapet had once been.
He struggled down the river bank to Cyril. He felt for a pulse but found none.
Berrow climbed back to the car. He would need to walk back to that village for help. His hands were shaking. He stood at the back of the car, lit a cigarette with a vesta and tossed the lighted match on the ground, unaware of the lake of petrol that had formed.
There was a terrific explosion as Berrow and the car went up in a fireball of flame.
Harry was to escort Rose to a luncheon party and she prayed he would not cancel.
They were accompanied by Daisy, Turner, the lady's maid, and two footmen. Rose began to wonder if she would ever have a chance to speak to Harry in private.
She was not seated next to him at table and so talked a little to the gentleman on her right-the weather-and the gentleman on her left-the state of the nation-picked at her food and thought the wretched meal with its eight courses would never end. How wonderful it would be, she thought, if I were to pick up the table-cloth and bundle all this food and take it down to the East End.
At last the hostess signalled to the ladies to join her in the drawing-room and leave the gentlemen to their port.
”Why are you looking so nervous?” whispered Daisy.
”Nothing.” Rose wanted to tell Harry about her discovery first. A little twinge of guilt warned her that she should have confided in Daisy first, but Rose wanted to impress Harry, to show him she could detect as well.
At last the gentlemen came in. Bridge tables were being set up and Daisy's green eyes gleamed like a cat's. She was a killing bridge player.
Harry joined Rose. She whispered urgently, ”I must talk to you in private.”
”There's a conservatory at the back of the house. Let's walk there.”
In the steamy warmth of the conservatory, they sat down on a bench in front of a marble statue of Niobe.
Harry was the first to speak. Rose listened in amazement when he told her how Berrow and Banks had hired Finch and how his secretary had nearly been killed. ”The police commissioner in York is going to arrest them. Don't you see? You are safe now. They must have been the ones behind the murder of Dolly.”
Rose's splendid deduction was losing its glow, but she said, ”I have discovered something as well. I am sure it was Jeremy Tremaine who hired Reg Bolton.”
”Why?”
”There is this c.o.c.kney who comes to the soup kitchen. He found G.o.d in prison. Don't you see? Jeremy is a divinity student. He could have been visiting prisoners and found a useful one.”
”I really do think we'll find out it was Berrow and Banks.”
Rose looked so disappointed that he said hurriedly, ”To put your mind at rest, I can leave now and go to Wormwood Scrubs and check the book for visiting clerics.”
”Take me with you. Please!”
”Very well. Tell Daisy to take Turner home in a cab.”
Normally Daisy would have been curious, but she was so addicted to cards that she only nodded.
At the prison, the governor protested that he was too busy a man to keep dealing with Captain Cathcart's requests.
Rose gave him a blinding smile and the governor thawed. He not only produced the required books but suggested that he take Rose on a tour of the prison.
Wormwood Scrubs proved to be even larger than Rose had imagined. It generally contained a thousand male and two hundred female convicts. They walked round the laundries where the women worked and then to the bakeries where the prisoners in their ugly uniforms were baking bread. There was also shoemaking and tailoring going on.
What Rose found unnerving was that all the labour was done in complete silence. It was like being in a Trappist monastery.
She was also taken to a room where the triangles were. Prisoners were strapped to these triangles and either birched or lashed with the cat-o'-nine-tails. The cat-o'-nine-tails was kept in a drawer. The governor lifted it out for Rose to examine. ”Doesn't look much, but it can inflict some damage.”
Rose repressed a shudder and suggested they return to Harry.
He was just closing the books when they entered the governor's barrack-like office.
As he and Rose got into the Rolls, he said, ”Jeremy Tremaine visited the prison on six occasions in the months before his sister's death. One of the prisoners he visited was Reg Bolton.”
”I wonder what Jeremy will say when we ask him?”
”We? I thought of going myself with Becket tomorrow.”
”You must take me with you! It was my idea.”