Hardcastle's Conspiracy

by Graham Ison

Genres: Mystery; Historical Mysteries; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

On the eve of the Great War in 1914, a body is found in the lake at St James' Park. What initially appears to be a robbery becomes more complex when it is discovered that the victim is a servant oat one of London's prestigious gentleman's clubs. Hardcastle's enquiries reveal that the clubs members - and some of its staff - are not all they purport to be. Discovering thieves, adulterers and a blackmailer along the way, and despite attempts to prevent him uncovering the truth, the persistent DI Hardcastle eventually makes an arrest.

Release date: October 14, 2015

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 220

Sample

The knock at the door came just as Alice Hardcastle had started to wash up the breakfast things. Young Walter had gone to school, and Kitty and
Maud, having only recently mastered the intricacies of shorthand and typing, had left for work at their respective offices. These were only a short walk from where the Hardcastle family lived in
Kennington Road, Lambeth, not far from where the famous Charlie Chaplin had once resided.

Muttering to herself about the lack of help in the house that the absence of her two working daughters had caused, Ernest Hardcastle’s wife shook the water from her hands and wiped them on
a tea towel.

‘Good morning, ma’am.’ The young policeman who stood at the door, his oilskin cape shiny with rain, looked apologetic. ‘Sorry to bother you, but—’

‘If you’re wanting the inspector,’ cut in Alice, ‘he left for work about ten minutes ago.’

‘Oh!’ The policeman fumbled beneath his cape and produced a message flimsy. ‘He’s wanted at the station, er, Cannon Row, that is,’ he said, glancing down at the
form.

‘Well, it’s no good telling me, lad,’ said Alice. ‘Anyhow, he should be nearly there by now. If he was in time to catch his tram,’ she added, half to herself. As
usual, her husband, claiming that he could not go to work on an empty stomach, had insisted on a good breakfast: fried eggs, bacon, two pieces of fried bread and a couple of sausages followed by
two slices of toast and marmalade, washed down with three cups of tea. And that often made him miss the tram he normally caught.

‘Ah, yes, right then.’ The constable stuffed the message back into his pocket. ‘Sorry to have bothered you, ma’am,’ he said again, as he sketched a salute made more
difficult by his encumbering cape, and departed.

Divisional Detective Inspector Ernest Hardcastle, as head of the CID for the A or Whitehall Division of the Metropolitan Police, had his office at Cannon Row police station off
Whitehall, and immediately opposite the forbidding edifice of New Scotland Yard. Fittingly, both buildings had been erected from Dartmoor granite hewn by convicts.

Far from missing his usual tram – it had been delayed by an overturned milk float – Hardcastle had been obliged to wait in Westminster Bridge Road for about twenty minutes. In the
pouring rain. Although his umbrella had kept his shoulders reasonably dry, his shoes, socks and spats were soaked. And he was in a foul mood.

The officer in charge of the police station, his four stripes proclaiming him to be a station-sergeant, had his back to the main door searching for a form in the huge stationery cabinet, and did
not hear Hardcastle enter.

The DDI deliberately let the flap of the counter fall with a resounding crash; he did not care to be ignored.

‘All correct, sir,’ said the station officer, turning hurriedly, ‘and you’re wanted, sir.’

‘What is it this time?’ asked Hardcastle crossly. ‘Not the bloody suffragettes been at it again, I hope.’ Just over a month previously, some of Mrs
Pankhurst’s followers had caused a minor explosion in Westminster Abbey, slightly damaging the Coronation Chair. But fortunately for the DDI, Special Branch had relieved him of what promised
to be a futile enquiry. Nonetheless, these aggressive women were continuing to conduct a campaign of malicious damage throughout the capital.

‘No, sir. Male body found in the park, sir.’ The sergeant fingered a piece of paper that lay on his desk. ‘We sent a message to Kennington Road nick for them to send a PC round
to your house to fetch you out.’

‘Which park? St James’s, Green Park or Hyde Park?’ snapped Hardcastle.

‘Er, St James’s, sir.’

‘Well say so, man. I’m not a bloody mind-reader.’ And with that caustic reproof, Hardcastle marched through the charge room and upstairs to his office.

‘Reckon he got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning, Sergeant,’ commented the constable on station duty.

‘You watch your bloody tongue when you’re talking about the DDI, lad,’ responded the station-sergeant, ‘or you’ll find yourself out on the streets again.’

The constable, not wishing to lose his coveted post inside a dry, warm police station, lapsed into silence.

Hardcastle flung open the door of the detectives’ office and glared around. ‘Well, what’s this about a body in St James’s Park?’ he demanded.

Detective Sergeant Charles Marriott, the first-class sergeant in charge of the office, rose to his feet. ‘Man’s body found in the lake, sir. About an hour ago. Mr Rhodes is out there
with DS Wood and DC Catto.’

‘What is it, Marriott, some drunken sot fell in and drowned himself?’

‘Don’t rightly know, sir, but Mr Rhodes sent for the divisional surgeon not half an hour ago, and he’s asked if you’d attend the scene.’

‘We’d better go and have a look then, Marriott. Grab your hat and your gamp. It’s raining cats and dogs out there.’

Despite the weather, the two detectives walked to the park, striding into Derby Gate, across Parliament Street, through King Charles Street and down the Clive Steps.

A small group of police stood around a body at the side of the lake. Some distance from it, and prevented from venturing closer by another policeman, a knot of sightseers craned their necks in
an attempt to see what was happening. A wheeled stretcher – what the police called a hand-ambulance and which they normally used for conveying drunks to the police station – was parked
in the nearby road, its attendant policeman hunched beneath his waterproof cape.

Hardcastle immediately singled out his deputy, Detective Inspector Edgar Rhodes, the man in charge of the sub-divisional CID.

‘Good morning, sir.’ Rhodes raised his bowler hat.

‘Well, Mr Rhodes, and what have we here?’ asked Hardcastle. ‘I hope you haven’t called me out for a simple drowning.’

‘No, sir, there’s a bit more to it than that. Looks as though the deceased had a good wallop over the head, and it might have been that’s what did for him. But I s’pose
we’ll have to wait for the pathologist’s report to be certain.’

Hardcastle grunted. ‘Who found him?’

Rhodes pointed to a constable standing next to a uniformed park-keeper. ‘PC 419 Wilkins, sir. He hadn’t long come on early turn, five beat, when he was called by the park-keeper
who’d seen this stiff face down in the lake. By the time we got here, they’d fetched the body out.’

‘Any idea who he is?’

‘Not yet, sir. He hadn’t got a wallet or nothing like that on him. Looks like a robbery. Knocked over the head and pushed in the lake, like as not.’

‘What did the divisional surgeon have to say?’

‘Certified death and went on his way, sir.’

‘Just stayed long enough to earn his fee, I suppose,’ muttered Hardcastle as he stepped across to the body. ‘Why are you holding your brolly over him, Catto?’ he asked,
staring at the DC.

‘Keeping the rain off of him, sir.’ Detective Constable Catto, somewhat mystified by the DDI’s query, had thought the reason obvious.

‘No bloody point in that, lad. You’ve just dragged the bugger out of the lake. He’s soaking wet already.’ Hardcastle stooped to inspect the man that the police had found.
There was a wound on his head some three inches in length that must have bled quite copiously until stemmed by the victim’s death and immersion.

‘Reckon he must have gone in off there, sir,’ said Rhodes, pointing to the iron suspension footbridge that crossed the lake and connected The Mall to Birdcage Walk.

‘Not likely to have fallen, not over those railings,’ mused Hardcastle. ‘Better chance he was shoved over. And he could have bashed his head on something on the way down, I
suppose.’

‘Might have hit the concrete bottom, sir,’ said Rhodes. ‘The lake’s only four feet deep.’

‘Unlikely, Mr Rhodes. The water would have slowed him down. I reckon he was clobbered before he went in.’ Hardcastle stood up. ‘Had a look round, have you?’

‘I had the men search the whole area, sir,’ said Rhodes. ‘There was nothing. No hat anywhere, and no sign of a weapon.’

‘Well, that’s a bugger and no mistake. More than likely got tossed in the lake by whoever done for him. If it wasn’t an accident, that is.’ But as he said it, Hardcastle
knew it was an untenable theory: the wound and the absence of a wallet gave the lie to that. ‘Better get him off to the mortuary, Mr Rhodes. There’s nothing more to be done
here.’

It was three o’clock that afternoon, Wednesday the fifteenth of July 1914, before Dr Bernard Spilsbury, the Home Office pathologist, was able to tell Hardcastle the
results of his findings.

‘I estimate the time of death at around midnight, Inspector, and the blow to the head fractured his skull. There’s no doubt he was dead before he went into the lake. No water in the
lungs, d’you see. And before you ask, it wasn’t vagal inhibition.’ A little under a year later, Spilsbury was to demonstrate his expertise in determining the cause of such deaths
when he testified in the ‘Brides in the Bath’ case at the Old Bailey. ‘You’ll be looking for a blunt instrument very likely.’

Hardcastle had no idea what Spilsbury had meant when he talked of vagal inhibition. ‘Anything else, Doctor?’

‘Yes, he’d had a few glasses of brandy. Quite a few, and not long before he died.’

‘Well, it’s murder and no mistake,’ said Hardcastle when he and Marriott were back at the police station. ‘And we don’t even know who he
was.’

‘I think we might, sir,’ said Marriott.

‘Oh, and how might we know?’ Hardcastle picked up his pipe and teased out the old ash.

‘I had a good look at the clothes he was wearing, sir. Black jacket and striped trousers. It’s possible he was in service. Anyhow, there was a label inside his jacket marked with the
name of Joseph Briggs.’

‘Good work, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle.

Marriott smiled at the rare compliment. ‘And the name of the tailor was Burroughs, sir. Got a place in Tottenham Court Road.’

Hardcastle put his pipe in the ashtray and stood up. ‘In that case, Marriott, we’ll have a word with them. See what they can tell us about this Mr Briggs.’ He lifted his bowler
hat and umbrella from the hatstand and paused as a thought occurred to him. ‘But if he’s in service, what’s he doing having his whistle made by a tailor, eh? Might be a city gent
for all we know.’

‘Perhaps he’s got a rich employer, sir.’

‘We shall see, Marriott, we shall see. Better bring that jacket with you.’

The manager at Burroughs, attired in similar fashion to that in which the victim had been dressed, examined the jacket that Marriott placed on the counter.

‘Yes, sir, that’s one of ours,’ said the manager, whose name, he told the detectives, was Martin. ‘It’s wet through,’ he added, raising his eyebrows.

‘Probably on account of us having pulled the dead body of its owner out of a lake early this morning, Mr Martin,’ said Hardcastle without a trace of irony.

‘Ah, I see,’ said Martin, and nodded as though such an occurrence was commonplace. He turned and thumbed through a ledger that rested on a shelf behind the counter. ‘Ah, yes, I
thought so.’ He turned to face Hardcastle again. ‘This jacket was part of a suit we supplied to Kendall’s for Mr Briggs.’

‘What, Kendall’s the Pall Mall club?’

‘The same, sir,’ said Martin with a satisfied smile. ‘We undertake all the tailoring for their staff. Mind you, we shall be busy on uniforms if there’s to be a
war.’

‘War!’ exclaimed Hardcastle. ‘There ain’t going to be a war.’

‘I’m not so sure about that, sir,’ said Martin. ‘Some of my clients reckon there’s a bit of sabre-rattling going on in the Balkans after the archduke was
assassinated.’

‘Bloody twaddle, all this talk of war, Marriott,’ muttered Hardcastle as they left Burroughs. ‘But more important than that, we’d better go and have a chat with the
powers-that-be at this here Kendall’s.’

The head porter at Kendall’s, one of many similar gentlemen’s clubs in Pall Mall, prided himself on knowing every one of the members by sight. And he knew
immediately that the two men who had just entered did not belong to the club.

‘May I help you, sir?’ he asked, addressing Hardcastle.

‘We’re police officers and we need to see whoever’s in charge.’

‘That’ll be Major Carmichael, sir, the club secretary.’ Determined not to allow these two ‘strangers’ into the inner sancta of the club, the head porter flicked his
fingers at a boy in page’s livery. ‘Tell the major there’s a couple of gents from the police what wants to have a word with him, lad. Quickly now.’ And turning to Hardcastle
again, said, ‘Won’t keep you half a mo’, gents.’

The man who appeared in the entrance hall a few minutes later was short and stocky. Probably about fifty years of age, he had a guardee moustache and iron-grey hair, brushed flat.
‘I’m Major Carmichael, gentlemen. How may I help you?’

‘Divisional Detective Inspector Hardcastle of the Whitehall Division,’ said Hardcastle, ‘and this here’s Detective Sergeant Marriott. We want to talk to you about a
member of your staff, Major. Well, we think he’s a member of your staff.’

‘I see. You’d better come along to my office then, Inspector.’ Carmichael looked beyond Hardcastle and gave a brief nod to a tall man in evening dress. ‘Good evening,
Chairman.’

‘Evening, Carmichael,’ replied the chairman affably.

‘Sir John Webster, the club chairman,’ whispered Carmichael in an aside, and turning abruptly on his heel led the two detectives across the smoking room and through a door in the far
corner.

The walls of the club secretary’s office were oak-panelled and hung with traditional military prints. That part of the wooden floor not covered with a Persian carpet was highly polished,
and across one corner was a heavy oak desk with an inlaid leather top.

‘Take a seat, gentlemen.’ Carmichael waved a hand towards two deep, leather club armchairs. ‘May I offer you a drink? A glass of whisky, perhaps?’

‘Very kind,’ murmured Hardcastle. ‘Thank you.’

Once Carmichael had dispensed liberal measures of Glenlivet into crystal tumblers, he sat down behind the desk, placing his own glass in the centre of a leather-edged blotter. ‘Well now,
one of my staff, you say? What’s he been up to?’

‘If, in fact, Joseph Briggs is a member of your staff, Major.’

‘Yes, he is. What about him?’

‘He’s dead,’ said Hardcastle, and took a sip of his malt whisky.

Carmichael expressed no surprise at the demise of one of the club’s employees, but Hardcastle assumed that, being a major, sudden death was not unique in his professional experience.
‘What happened to him? Get run over, did he?’ But then, realizing that so high ranking an officer was investigating the matter of Briggs’s death, added, ‘No, I suppose
not.’ He brushed his moustache and took another mouthful of his whisky.

‘We are treating his death as murder, sir,’ said Hardcastle before taking another sip of his drink. ‘I have to say this is a very good drop of Scotch, Major,’ he added,
raising his glass to peer closely at the contents.

‘Only the best at Kendall’s, Inspector,’ said Carmichael with a smug smile. ‘And that includes the staff. I handpick them myself.’

Hardcastle described how the body of Joseph Briggs had been found that morning, and then asked, ‘When was the last time that Briggs was seen here in the club, Major?’

‘Eleven o’clock last night.’ Carmichael spoke without hesitation. ‘I was here myself until then, and saw him leave. He was the late-duty smoking-room steward, you see. If
there are any members left here after that, decanters of whisky, brandy and port are left out, and the members sign a chit and leave it with the night-duty porter.’

‘Putting a bit on trust, isn’t it?’ asked Hardcastle with a smile. He certainly wouldn’t have put policemen on their honour where alcohol was concerned.

‘Kendall’s is a gentlemen’s club, Inspector,’ said Carmichael sharply, as if to imply that cheating was unthinkable.

‘Why is it called Kendall’s?’ Hardcastle asked. Most of the clubs in Pall Mall had names that gave some indication of the members’ interests, like the Army and Navy, the
Travellers, the Oxford and Cambridge, the Reform and the Royal Automobile.

‘It was named after Major John Kendall,’ Carmichael began, ‘an officer of the Royal Sappers and Miners. He was killed in the Crimean War. One of his brother officers, a Colonel
Charles Ingram, founded the club and named it in Kendall’s honour. It’s primarily a club for army officers, serving and retired – originally for those who had fought in the Crimea
– but these days we also admit gentlemen of substance and good standing.’ He paused. ‘Provided, of course, that they’re not engaged in trade.’

‘Very interesting,’ said Hardcastle, wishing he had not asked. ‘I take it that Briggs did not live in, Major.’

‘No, he didn’t. I think I have his address here, if that’s of any use to you.’

‘That would be helpful, yes.’ Hardcastle turned to his sergeant. ‘Make a note, Marriott.’

Major Carmichael turned to a book on his desk and flicked through the pages. ‘Yes, here we are. According to my records, Briggs lived at twenty-seven Hatfield Street, wherever that
is.’

‘It’s a turning off of Horseferry Road, Major. Just a short stride across the park,’ said Hardcastle. ‘How long had he been in the club’s employment?’

Carmichael glanced down at the book again. ‘Just over two years, and we paid him fifty pounds per annum, if that’s of any interest.’

‘Was he married, d’you know?’

‘No, I’m afraid I can’t assist you there, Inspector.’ Then, as a thought crossed his mind, Carmichael asked, ‘Is this likely to get into the newspapers, d’you
think?’

‘Wouldn’t be at all surprised,’ said Hardcastle, tiring of the club secretary’s somewhat patronizing attitude. ‘There’s not a lot you can keep from them Fleet
Street hacks when they get going, Major, and that’s a fact.’

Marriott turned back a page of his pocket book. ‘Is there any chance that Briggs could have helped himself to a few glasses of brandy when no one was looking, Major?’ he asked.

‘Certainly not,’ said Carmichael, a little too hurriedly. ‘That sort of behaviour would result in instant dismissal.’

Based on what Dr Spilsbury had said, Hardcastle decided that the club secretary was not as clever as he thought he was. ‘There’s the question of identification, Major,’ he
said. ‘Perhaps you could make yourself available to come to the Horseferry Road mortuary tomorrow morning.’

‘Well, I don’t know about that, Inspector. You see I’m rather—’

‘Shall we say ten o’clock,’ Hardcastle put in. ‘Me and my sergeant will meet you there.’

‘Well, I don’t know, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle as the pair strode down Pall Mall. ‘Strikes me that the bold major back there was more concerned about the reputation of
his precious club than he was about the fate of his smoking-room steward. And I don’t reckon he knows half as what goes on, neither.’

‘Reckon he’s hiding something, sir?’

‘Hiding something? Him?’ Hardcastle scoffed. ‘I doubt it, Marriott. I’ve met army majors before. Too full of their own piss and importance. But that’s not to say we
won’t have a quiet word with the head porter, just to see if what Major Carmichael said was true about when Briggs left the club.’

‘Is he likely to come across without Carmichael’s say-so, sir? He does seem to rule the roost in there.’

Hardcastle tapped the side of his nose. ‘Don’t you worry about that, Marriott my lad. When Ernie Hardcastle decides he’s going to put a few questions to someone, it’d
take more than the Major Carmichaels of this world to stop him.’

‘What’s next, then, sir?’

‘Number twenty-seven Hatfield Street.’

‘What, now, sir?’ asked Marriott, glancing at his watch.

‘It’s only eight o’clock, Marriott, and for all we know there might be a Mrs Briggs sitting there wondering why her old man hasn’t shown up since last
night.’

Number 27 Hatfield Street proved to be a public house called the Rising Sun.

‘So, Marriott,’ said Hardcastle, as he pushed open the door of the saloon bar, ‘our Mr Briggs lived in a pub. He can’t have been all bad.’

‘Evening, gents.’ A ruddy-faced man gave the top of the bar a cursory wipe with a cloth. ‘What’s your pleasure?’

‘Two pints of best bitter,’ said Hardcastle.

‘Two pints it is.’ The man took glass tankards from the shelf behind him and slowly pulled on the pump handles to fill them. ‘There we are, gents,’ he said, placing them
on the bar.

Waiting until Marriott had put a shilling down, Hardcastle addressed the man who had served them. ‘Are you the landlord here?’

‘That I am. Jed Parsons is the name. And you’re Mr Hardcastle, I believe.’

‘How d’you know that?’ asked Hardcastle suspiciously.

Parsons grinned. ‘Anyone who keeps a pub makes it his business to know the local law, guv’nor,’ he said, pushing Marriott’s money back towards him.

‘What d’you know about Joseph Briggs, then?’

‘Got a room upstairs. Works across at Kendall’s in Pall Mall. Why, what’s he been up to?’

‘And what makes you think he might have been up to something?’ asked Hardcastle, taking the head off his beer.

‘Well, with you coming in here asking about him, I thought you might’ve got him locked up somewhere.’

‘We have,’ said Hardcastle. ‘In the mortuary.’

‘Blimey! What happened to him, then?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to find out,’ said Hardcastle, ‘but we pulled him out of the lak. . .