Consequences of Sin Read online

  The clerk readjusted his glasses for a second time. “Miss Marlow,” he turned and said wearily, “why don’t you wait for his lordship inside while I attend to this?”

  Ursula could barely conceal a smile of satisfaction as she swept her way into Lord Wrotham’s chambers with a deliberate flourish of her fur-trimmed cloak.

  She closed the door quickly and hastily scanned the room. The bookshelves were lined with law reports and leather-bound books, all neatly arranged. Even the morning’s Times had been painstakingly refolded and placed next to a black umbrella on one of the lower shelves. But despite the regulation and order that Lord Wrotham obviously exerted, there was still an undeniable undercurrent of decadence that intrigued her.

  Ursula quietly crossed the room, placed her hat and gloves down on one of the leather armchairs, and leaned over Lord Wrotham’s desk. It had a tooled-leather writing surface, and apart from a wooden desk tray, inkwell, silver cigarette box, and ashtray, the desk was spotlessly clear. Only a dark green Faber-Castell pencil carelessly left in the center disturbed the symmetry and order of the desktop. There were no piles of paper or case notes lying upon the desk, no noticeable signs of Winifred’s (or anyone else’s) case files. Wrotham would hardly be that obvious, Ursula thought ruefully. He was nothing if not methodical. Still, she thought, it was worth taking a look.

  Ursula knelt down behind the desk, inching Wrotham’s tall, barrel-backed chair out of the way, and slowly slid open the top drawer. Inside, there was a box of monogrammed letter paper and envelopes, an ink blotter, a gold-plated Waterman fountain pen, and a half-filled bottle of black ink. The next drawer down contained a wooden box with a neatly assembled collection of shirt collars and studs. She caught the faint yet distinctive scent she always associated with Lord Wrotham—a heady mixture of bergamot and tobacco—and closed the drawer quickly. In the third drawer there was a brass magnifying glass in a velvet-lined case. Ursula sighed—Lord Wrotham’s life seemed even more mundane than expected.

  She examined the bottom the desk, running her hand along the smooth wood to feel for any recesses or compartments. Nothing. A quick inspection of the remaining desk drawers, however, revealed nothing more than additional stationery and a dusty barrister’s wig still in its box. She crawled over to the other side, slid open the top right-hand drawer, and peered in. What she saw made her recoil sharply, and she had to stifle a cry as she banged her elbow on the desk chair. Why on earth would Lord Wrotham have a gun in his office?

  Ursula gingerly picked up the Webley revolver by its handle. It was so much heavier than she would have imagined. She quelled a momentary flutter of panic before placing the revolver carefully back into the drawer next to a box of cartridges. She rubbed her elbow before closing the drawer. Suddenly Lord Wrotham’s life didn’t seem quite so dull.

  She glanced about the room. She didn’t have time to dwell on the matter of the gun. She needed to refocus on the task at hand. Where would Wrotham have put Winifred’s files? she wondered. Surely he must have some information that could be of use, though it was hardly something he would let Mr. Hargreaves file. No, whatever he had he would keep close to him. Ursula felt sure of this. It was just a question of where.

  Pacing the room, she ran her fingers absently along the antique globe that stood on a pedestal near the door to Lord Wrotham’s antechamber. A few more steps and she reached the edge of the bookshelves. She laid a tentative hand on the stuffed bird perched on an artificial wooden branch. The brass plaque beneath it read “Ara ararauna—Blue and Gold Macaw.” Ursula glided her fingers along the feathery-soft chest and murmured quietly to herself before crossing to the display case in the corner. Though the corner was dark, Ursula could see that the glass cabinet was scrupulously clean. There was not a speck of dust or smudge of a fingerprint. Cautiously she bent over, trying to ensure she didn’t touch the glass. Displayed inside was an old vellum book, open to reveal a page bearing a miniature illumination of the Annunciation. On the opposite page was a prayer in Gothic German script with a wide ivy-leaf border. Again Ursula was taken off guard. Like the tapestry behind Lord Wrotham’s desk, the manuscript seemed incongruous. There was something about both of them that suggested an aesthetic sensibility that she did not expect of him.

  Ursula pursed her lips—all this ruminating was wasting valuable time. She was here to help Winifred, not ponder Lord Wrotham’s decorating tastes. She turned away, angry at herself for being distracted so easily. As she turned, her skirt brushed against the case, and she heard the distinctive clang of a metal key hitting glass. She looked down and saw a small key inside a keyhole on the strip of wood that framed the glass case. Attached to this key was a much larger one, dangling from a dark red ribbon. It was the larger key that she had brushed against.

  “I wonder…” Ursula mused, her gaze falling once more on the tapestry that hung behind Lord Wrotham’s desk. She untied the larger key from the ribbon and crossed the room.

  She carefully pulled the tapestry back and peered behind it. At first she could see nothing but the wood paneling. She ran her hands along the smooth wood until her finger caught a groove; she could just make out the faint outline of a keyhole embedded in a knot in one of the panels. Ursula hitched up her skirt and perched on the edge of a shelf as she tried to maneuver the key into the lock. The key turned easily, and with one brief tug the panel slid open. Inside was a small recessed hole, just big enough to hold a tin box. Ursula pulled out the box and laid it on the desk.

  Exhaling slowly, she opened the box. Inside was a suede-covered book and a small stack of papers tied together with a leather band. Ursula opened the book and discovered that it was a diary. The title page said The Radcliffe Expedition—A Journey Down the Orinoco (the latter part had been scratched out and replaced with the ominous words A Descent into Hell). Mindful of the time, Ursula thumbed through the diary quickly, trying to ascertain whether it was relevant to the inquiry into Laura’s death.

  What started out as an orderly description of an expedition, however, seemed to swiftly deteriorate into a mess of scrawls and grotesque caricatures. One page caught her eye, for the caricature was of a man whom there was no mistaking. It was her father, hideously contorted, dangling from a hangman’s noose. Ursula stared at it in horror. On the following page was another drawing, this time of a group of men—distorted but nevertheless unmistakable. There was her father and some of his colleagues sitting behind a long table. They were dining on a gruesome assortment of butchered animals. Beneath them were scrawled the words Radcliffe’s puppetmasters—may they dine in hell. What, Ursula wondered, did her father have to do with a South American expedition? More puzzling was why Lord Wrotham was hiding this—was there a link between Laura Radcliffe’s death and Colonel Radcliffe’s involvement in this expedition? Ursula turned back to the front page. There was a name engraved there. Ronald Henry Bates. The name meant nothing to her. Her father had never mentioned such a man. Ursula bit her lip and glanced at the clock—it was already half past one. Time was running out.

  She put down the diary and untied the papers. The first of these were notes of the interview with Winifred, handwritten in Lord Wrotham’s decisive script. Ursula tried to digest the information as quickly as possible. Nothing seemed remarkable except for his notations in the margin of the second page. Wrotham had written three questions:

  What is she hiding?

  Link with Bates?

  How do we deal with Ursula?

  Ursula tried to keep her self-control, but her anger was rising. However, there was no time, she told herself, to worry about that now. She needed to find out as much as she could as quickly as possible.

  The second paper was a typed letter to Lord Wrotham from the permanent undersecretary of the Foreign Office, stating that inquiries were ongoing but as yet there was No indication that the man you seek has entered Britain. Our agents have traced him to Venezuela, but no further information is available. Ursula refolded this and turned to the next sheaf of pap
er, which seemed even more perplexing. There were four pages, and they appeared to be a list of her father’s business interests. The most puzzling aspect was that the writing was Lord Wrotham’s. Ursula scanned the list and could see nothing that appeared to relate to the case against Winifred. Lord Wrotham had circled some of the entries and scribbled comments next to others, but none of it made any sense to her. She was halfway down the list when a notation on the top of the page stopped her short. It was written in red ink and underlined: How much is Marlow willing to pay? Ursula was about to read the remaining papers when she heard voices outside.

  She stifled an exclamation and hastily stuffed the papers and the diary back into the tin box. She shoved the box into the recess and pulled the tapestry into place. She was just replacing the key in the glass case when Lord Wrotham opened the door and strode inside.

  “I was admiring your manuscript,” Ursula said with a calmness that belied the thumping of her heart in her chest. She saw Wrotham glance at the desk, and the image of him holding the revolver suddenly came to mind. Perhaps the pencil had not been placed quite so carelessly, she thought.

  “It’s been in the family for generations,” Wrotham replied evenly as he walked past and placed his hat down on the desk. Ursula was not deceived. She saw how he raised his hand to push back his hair and knew that for a moment at least he had been as unnerved as she.

  “It’s a Book of Hours dating back to 1475,” Wrotham continued. “A gift from the Duke of Bavaria, or so I’m told.”

  “How very interesting,” Ursula replied with icy politeness, her composure rapidly returning.

  Wrotham took off his dark gray overcoat, opened the door to his antechamber, and hung it up on the coatrack just inside the doorway. As he returned and closed the door behind him, he drew out his pocketwatch and unlatched it from the fob chain. He then placed the watch in the top right-hand drawer, his eyes watching her closely. Ursula held a momentary breath. Lord Wrotham sat down behind his desk, reached for a cigarette from his silver cigarette box, and leaned back in his chair as he proceeded to light it.

  “So, Miss Marlow,” he began, “why are you here?” He gave her no time to respond before he continued. “I have no doubt that you knew I was meeting your father, so I’m left to wonder why you deceived poor old Chatterley out there that we had an appointment.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you know why I’m here,” Ursula retorted smoothly, gathering up her hat and gloves from the armchair.

  “I’m hardly likely to leave sensitive case files lying around in my office, now, am I?”

  “Well, you have to give a girl full marks for trying,” Ursula replied with a deadpan smile.

  Lord Wrotham studied her face. “Satisfied, are we?” he asked.

  “Not in the least! But in all seriousness, Lord Wrotham, I do apologize for my impromptu visit. When I last visited Miss Stanford-Jones, I noticed they had taken away all her books. I brought you my copy of Women and Socialism to give to her.” Ursula fished the book out of her purse and handed it to him. “With Mr. Hargreaves away on holiday, I didn’t feel comfortable leaving it with an unknown clerk.”

  “I see,” Lord Wrotham replied, his eyes never leaving hers. “I will pass this on to Miss Stanford-Jones when I see her next.”

  “Thank you.” She bowed her head as she pulled on her gloves one by one. “I really must be going.”

  “Of course,” Lord Wrotham stood up and walked over to the door. “Good day, Miss Marlow,” he said in a voice laced with sarcasm. “I’m sure Miss Stanford-Jones will be touched by your concern for her.”

  Ursula edged past him, hurried down the stairs and out into the quadrangle, troubled by the fresh litany of unanswered questions her visit had raised.

  Eight

  “How the hell should I react, my girl, when I read such muck…such filth in the Daily Mail?”

  Ursula was silent. Her father, enraged, was pounding his fist on the desk in frustration. He had summoned her to his office at Butler’s Wharf, adjacent to the warehouses along Shad Thames, to berate her for talking to Mr. Hackett.

  “I didn’t tell him anything!” Ursula protested.

  “But you did talk to him.”

  “Well, I can hardly deny it—”

  “No, lassie, you damn well cannot. Harrison’s man saw you. Damn it, Ursula, how could you be so foolish?!”

  “What does the article say?” Ursula asked quietly.

  Her father threw the newspaper across the desk. She picked it up carefully and started to read.

  The article bore the banner THE CURSE OF THE RADCLIFFE EXPEDITION?

  Two decades on, and the mystery surrounding the Radcliffe expedition continues to deepen, with the deaths of Laura and William Radcliffe last month. Colonel Radcliffe, who led the ill-fated expedition to Venezuela in 1888, was found on his Godalming estate with an apparently self-inflicted bullet wound to the head. His eldest daughter, Laura, was found only days earlier, the victim of a vicious knife attack. Although Miss Winifred Stanford-Jones, who stands trial for the murder of Laura Radcliffe, is a well-known violent proponent of the “vote for women” campaign, recent evidence has come to this paper’s attention that suggests the Metropolitan Police may have been premature in dismissing accounts that Miss Radcliffe’s death could be related to her father’s expedition.

  The Radcliffe expedition—which was funded by an endowment from some of the North’s most successful businessmen; Mr. Robert Marlow, the prominent industrialist, provided the bulk of the finances to fund the expedition, along with his business associates Messrs Gerard Anderson (of Anderson & Stowe Ltd.) and Daniel Abbott (of Northern Railways fame)—ended in April 1888 with a brutal uprising by the native Indians that claimed the life of the botanist Ronald Henry Bates.

  Ursula looked up and was about to protest further but was merely instructed to “read on.”

  She did as her father ordered, and it was then she fully realized why her father was so angry.

  While the stated purpose of the expedition was to supply the British Natural History Museum with specimens for its tropical fauna and flora collections, one cannot help but speculate, with such wealthy and influential business concerns involved, if there wasn’t a more lucrative objective in mind. The mystery surrounding the fate of the Radcliffe expedition deepens when one considers the lengths to which these businessmen continue to protect the expedition’s secret. If the expedition has no bearing on the death of Laura Radcliffe, then why is Mr. Robert Marlow funding the defense of Miss Stanford-Jones?

  Ursula finished reading and replaced the newspaper on her father’s desk.

  “He said he worked for the Star,” she said quietly.

  Her father sat down heavily in his chair, and Ursula felt a pang of regret. She certainly never intended that her comment to Mr. Hackett would lead to such speculation.

  “I want you to promise me,” Robert Marlow began, “that you will stop your interferin’ right now!”

  “But, Papa, I just want to help Freddie.”

  “Freddie be damned! I forbid you to look into this anymore! Do you hear me? No puttin’ your nose in where it’s not needed. You need to be thinkin’ of your future. Can’t have you playing detective when you should be finding yourself a husband!”

  Ursula flushed, trying to restrain her anger and humiliation at being spoken to like this. She had never seen her father in such a state. Their relationship had always been so close. Hot tears started streaming down her face.

  Her father reached out and then checked himself.

  “Nay, lass,” he said. “I mean it. Tears won’t help. You’ve got to promise me you’ll leave well enough alone. Miss Stanford-Jones has the best lawyers. I should know—I’m payin’ for them, for Christ’s sake. That’s got to be enough for you.”

  Ursula nodded, though in her heart she refused to give up.

  “Well now, that’s that.” Her father was calming down. “Tom’ll drive you home, and mind you don’t linger. I need him bac
k to help finalize the terms of the McClintock deal.”

  “Right,” Ursula answered stiffly.

  There was a knock, and Tom poked his head around the door as it opened. “You wanted me, sir? Sorry, it took me a while—I was just checking the load that came in from Cairo.”

  “Drive Ursula home, would you? And mind you be back before four. We still have a few more hours to put in before we get the McClintock deal finalized.”

  “Right ho!” Tom replied jovially.

  Ursula winced. She had little doubt that Tom knew what her father had been saying to her all along.

  Tom opened the door and led her out into the dim corridor that connected the office with the warehouse. There was a faint smell of spice in the air even though her father’s warehouse held only bolts of cloth and linens. Her father had recently established a new venture to supply haberdashery to McClintock’s department stores and had appointed Tom to oversee the deal.

  Tom led Ursula into Copper Row, past two men unloading crates from the back of a horse-drawn delivery van.

  “Like my new motorcar?” Tom asked, pointing out a compact two-seater motorcar that was parked behind the van. “It’s a Humber. I bought it just last week.”

  “Very nice,” Ursula answered coolly.

  He helped her climb up onto the red leather bench seat. The car was open to the elements, so Ursula wrapped her scarf around her head before replacing her hat. Tom dug out a pair of driving goggles from beneath the driver’s seat and pulled them on.

  “You look ridiculous in those,” Ursula commented as she jerked her gloves out of her coat pocket and tugged them on one at a time.

  Tom made no comment. He merely started the car engine, grinned, and gave her the thumbs-up signal as he maneuvered the motorcar past the delivery van and out onto Tooley Street.

  Once through Lambeth and over the New Vauxhall Bridge, Tom started to talk. Ursula kept her eyes firmly on the road. She was in no mood to listen to his chatter.