One
St. Thomas House, Singapore
Friday 12 August 1910
". . . Beneath the floor of a cellar in . . . Hilldrop Crescent, Camden-road, the mutilated and battered body of a woman which had been buried in quicklime was found. The body was that of Mrs. Cora Crippen, a music hall singer of American nationality, professionally known as Belle Ellmore. Her husband, Hawley Harvey Crippen, an American dentist, is suspected to be the murderer, and a full description of him and a young Frenchwoman named Le Neve, with whom he disappeared, was circulated . . ."
Harriet Gordon paused in buttering her toast. "We know all this," she said.
"Yes, get to the exciting bit," Julian and Harriet's ward, Will Lawson, put in. "How did Inspector Drew arrest him?"
The Reverend Julian Edwards regarded the boy from over the top of his glasses. "Stop feeding the cat under the table, Will," he said. "I can see what you are doing."
A slight color stained the boy's cheeks and he picked up the spoon to crack the top of his egg, without making eye contact with his guardian.
Julian took a bite of his toast, shook out and refolded the morning's copy of the Straits Times to continue reading the article headed Sensational Arrest on an Allan Liner.
He scanned the article and continued, "Disguised as pilots, Inspector Drew, accompanied by two policemen, boarded the Montrose from a rowing boat. Crippen was walking the deck with the ship's surgeon. He exclaimed: Three pilots are coming on board. Isn't this unusual? The doctor did not reply. Inspector Drew walked past Crippen and made sure of his man. Then he said, Crippen, I want you-"
A frantic rapping at the front door interrupted the dramatic account.
"Oh bother," Harriet grumbled. "Please see who it is, Huo Jin."
Huo Jin cast her employer a baleful glance. She too had been listening to the gripping account of the arrest of the notorious Dr. Crippen. The household's amah never hurried anywhere and it seemed an age before she returned with a note in her hand.
"Who was at the door?" Harriet asked, returning to the serious business of finishing her own rapidly cooling boiled egg.
Huo Jin shrugged and handed Harriet a sealed envelope. "For you, mem."
Harriet broke the seal and withdrew the single sheet of paper, embossed with The Cedars, Blenheim Road, Singapore.
"It's from Priscilla Nolan," she said.
Julian returned to studying the newspaper. "Is she the one from the tennis club?"
"Yes," Harriet said without looking up from the missive. "I occasionally partner her in doubles. Oh my!"
Julian looked up. "Problem?"
"Pris writes: My dear Harriet. Please come at once. There has been a tragic accident and I would welcome your advice, and the spiritual comfort of your brother, as we must see how best to break the news to Jack."
Julian pushed his glasses back up his nose. "Oh dear. Do you suppose Jack's father has fallen ill or met with an accident?"
"She doesn't say. We should go to her, Julian."
She passed her brother the note and he scanned it. "The summons sounds urgent, Harri. Let me fetch my bag-I may be called upon in a professional capacity." He left the following words unspoken-generally a minister of religion would be called upon to administer the sacraments for the sick or dying.
Will, who had been watching them with wide eyes, said, "Jack Nolan's staying with Mitchell and his family at their beach villa in Katong for the month."
Harriet cast her ward a sharp glance, detecting the underlying note of envy in his voice. Unfortunately for Will, no invitations to pass a few weeks at a beach villa during the long holidays had come his way, and his best friend, John Simpson, had sailed home to England for the break, making it a long, lonely time for the boy. Julian and Harriet had talked about a few days' sojourn at the beach before school resumed in late August but the weeks had slipped away and along with them, Will's hope of a summer idyll by the sea.
Julian folded the paper and rose to his feet. "Huo Jin, please can you ask Aziz to hail down a gharry for us?"
The amah rolled her eyes and assumed her expression of long suffering before leaving the room, muttering to herself. Harriet and Julian exchanged amused glances. The grumbling was all pretense. Huo Jin had proved time and again that she had a good heart and an unspoken loyalty to everyone at St. Tom's House, but only Will regularly saw the softer side of the amah.
Two
The Cedars
Friday 12 August
The colonel's lady lay spread-eagled on her bed almost lost in the meringue confection of white linen, lace and net, now made grotesque by the dark, reeking bloodstains that marred the pristine bedclothes.
Inspector Robert Curran of the Detective Branch of the Straits Settlements Police Force had been a soldier and a policeman for most of his adult life, and he thought that nothing could horrify him. However, the sight of Mrs. Sylvie Nolan's half-naked corpse turned his stomach.
She wore a nightdress of expensive muslin, a once-pretty thing trimmed with ribbons and lace, but the fight that had wrecked the room and claimed her life had seen the flimsy garment ripped almost in half. He didn't need the police surgeon, Dr. Euan Mackenzie, to tell him that Sylvie had died from a blow to her head, several blows, rendering the question of which one had actually killed her, academic. Whoever had committed this act had hit her repeatedly and with great force using some sort of heavy object.
Steeling himself, he leaned over to examine what was left of her face. He had never met Sylvie Nolan in life, but there had been photographs on a table in the front hall of the house and he had taken a moment to study what looked to be a recent wedding photograph: Lieutenant Colonel Nolan, magnificent in his regimental dress uniform, and his much younger wife, in silk and orange blossom. She had been beautiful, a beauty that went beyond mere youthful prettiness. Even in the sepia tones of the photograph, Curran had been struck by the classic bone structure of the face, the perfectly proportioned nose, the large heavy-lashed eyes, the perfect complexion and a full, sensuous mouth.
Now all that loveliness had been reduced to a bloody pulp.
Her hand lay palm up on the ruined sheets, the fingers curled in a curiously vulnerable gesture. He picked her hand up and it hung limply in his grip, the skin devoid of warmth. In this climate the presence, or not, of rigor mortis told him very little. There were bruises on her arm, clearly visible on the pale skin beneath the torn, filmy material of her nightdress. The lobe of her right ear, which had escaped the battering, was torn and bloodied as if something, probably an earring, had been ripped from it.
He gently laid her hand back on the bed in the position he had found it and straightened. He had seen enough and the doctor could verify the rest.
"Cover her," he ordered.
Constable Ernest Greaves set his photographic equipment to one side and used one of the large bath towels, which lay neatly folded on the washstand, to cover the bloody mess. Even the phlegmatic Greaves had gone pale, his lips tightly compressed and a sheen of sweat, not due entirely to the humidity, shone on his brow.
Curran blew out a breath and stepped back from the bed. With the body now hidden from view, the room resumed some semblance of normality or at least as normal as it could be, given the upended furniture and broken ornaments and the presence of the late woman's husband, Lieutenant Colonel John Nolan, commanding officer of the First Battalion South Sussex Infantry.
The soldier, a man of about forty, still dressed in blue-spotted pajamas covered by a light silken dressing gown, sat on a white-painted rattan daybed furnished with pink velvet cushions, his hands hanging limply between his knees and his eyes glazed with shock. A big man in height and breadth, with a bristling brown moustache, now flecked with gray like his hair, he looked older than his years and shrunken, diminished by the horrific death of his young wife.
Curran laid his hand on the man's shoulder. "Colonel?"
When he got no response, he hunkered down so he was looking up into the older man's eyes. "Colonel Nolan, can you tell me what happened here?"
Nolan shook his head, his eyes regaining some focus. "I . . . I found her . . . this morning. Thought I'd bring her tea in . . ."
Curran left an encouraging silence, allowing the man time to gather his thoughts.
Nolan swallowed. "I went to the mess dinner at the barracks last night-regimental birthday . . . no wives. She kissed me good-night and that was the last time I saw her until . . ." His gaze flicked to the bed. ". . . until this morning."
"You didn't see her when you got home?"
He shook his head. "We don't share the same bedroom. She hated to be disturbed and my hours are irregular." He pointed at a second door that stood slightly ajar. "I sleep through there. I got home after one. The adjoining door was locked and there was no light in her bedroom, so I assumed that she was asleep and didn't want to be bothered, so I went to bed."
"Go on," Curran said.
"This morning, I heard the maid knocking on her door so I went out into the hall. The girl had mem's morning tea and the mail. I thought I would surprise her so I took the tray from her. When I tried the door, I found it was locked so I set the tray down and knocked. When I didn't get a response, I used my key to unlock the adjoining door." His voice cracked and he swallowed, his Adam's apple rising and falling. "Then I saw her." His gaze returned momentarily to the bed and back to Curran. "Dammit, Curran, you must have seen some sights. I've been a soldier . . . served in South Africa. There are things I've witnessed, but this is different. I've never seen anything . . . not someone you know . . ." The man lowered his head and the next words were barely audible. ". . . and love."
Like Lieutenant Colonel Nolan, Curran had been a career soldier and had also served in South Africa. He had witnessed grisly scenes during his time serving with the Mounted Military Police and worse as a policeman, but the broken bodies had not been someone he knew and cared for. So much easier to view such scenes dispassionately when there is no emotion.
Curran dragged his thoughts back to the present.
"Who else lives here?"
Nolan looked up and blinked. "Apart from the servants, my sister, Priscilla. Sylvie's brother, Nicholas Gentry, is a junior officer in the battalion. He lives in the mess but stays up here sometimes."
"Was he here last night?"
Nolan shook his head. "He was at the mess dinner. I was the dining-in president and he had been assigned the role of the vice president. My son, Jack, boards at St. Thomas during the term. It's holidays now and he would normally be here but he is staying with a friend for a couple of weeks at their beach villa. Apart from Sylvie and the servants, Pris-Priscilla-would have been the only one at home."
Priscilla Nolan must have been the hysterical woman Curran had glimpsed in the living room being comforted by an Indian amah.
Curran rose to his feet. "Colonel, I must ask you to leave this room. I'll deal with everything here. I suggest you retire to your bedroom. Do you have a batman who can assist you?"
"Not at the moment. Sylvie didn't like having a batman in the house. She said there was nothing he could do for me that she and the servants couldn't, so I sent Corporal Billings back to the lines. He's been looking after young Gentry."
Curran made a mental note to speak with Corporal Billings.
"I will ask the doctor to look in on you when he gets here."
Nolan frowned. "The doctor? Why have you sent for a doctor?" He glanced at the bed again. "Nothing to be done for her . . . not now."
"Dr. Mackenzie is our police surgeon. I need him to verify death and the injuries she sustained."
The soldier nodded. "Of course. Good man, Mackenzie."
Curran nodded. "Constable Greaves will see you to your room."
Constable Greaves had retreated to the doorway, and looking at his pasty face, Curran realized Greaves needed an excuse, any excuse, to leave the room.
Nolan shuffled across to the door through to his own bedroom, his shoulders stooped, his eyes averted from the bed. At the doorway, Curran stopped him.
"Just before you go, is there anything out of place? Anything missing from the room?"
Nolan turned and blinked at Curran. "What do you mean?" He looked around the room. "It must be plain even to you, Inspector, that my poor Sylvie fought for her life. That chair by the desk"-he indicated an object of walnut and ebony with a pink velvet seat, which now lay upturned with a broken leg on a pretty floral Persian rug-"that cost me a fortune in London."
"I am wondering about particular objects. If it was a burglary, something would be missing."
Nolan's gaze scanned the disordered room, settling on the small, elegant desk that matched the broken chair. He pointed with a shaking finger. "One of the candlesticks is missing. A silver candlestick. She said she liked to write in her journal by the light of the candle, rather than the lamp. She said she found it more conducive to collecting her thoughts." His lips twitched. "One of her little fancies."
Curran's instincts prickled. "She kept a journal?"
Nolan nodded and he gave a hollow laugh. "She was still such a girl at heart. She kept it locked in the desk."
His hand dropped to his side and his gaze fell on an upended gilt box beside the desk. "Her jewelry box. Looks like the bastard took all her jewelry."
"Did she have anything of value?"
He shrugged. "A few bits and pieces but nothing of great value. You will have to ask Pris, she would know more than me." He glanced back at the shrouded figure on the bed. "Who would do such a thing for a few trinkets?"
"Thank you, Colonel. You have been most helpful. Do you have your keys on you?"
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