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  Contents

  John Buxton Hilton

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  John Buxton Hilton

  Dead-Nettle

  John Buxton Hilton

  John Buxton Hilton was born in 1921 in Buxton, Derbyshire. After his war service in the army he became an Inspector of schools, before retiring in 1970 to take up full-time writing.

  He wrote two books on language teaching as well as being a prolific crime writer – his works include the Superintendent Simon Kenworthy series and the Inspector Thomas Brunt series, as well as the Inspector Mosley series under the pseudonym John Greenwood.

  Chapter One

  Hetty Wilson was five days in Derby: long enough to make her mark. But it was not clear what sort of mark she had made. She had not actually caused trouble, merely caused trouble to be anticipated. No one wanted to admit having seen her: which was predictable. Even Constable Kewley was not anxious to talk about her. Yet she must certainly have passed him that night as he nosed his way between St Mary’s Gate and St Helen’s – just as she must have passed Tilly Sutcliffe and Martha Lang under the archway of Harriman’s oil-store. It was equally sure that these two were waiting for her to trip over the toe of an accidentally extended clog. A loop of leather thong was round Martha Lang’s wrist, under the hanging corner of her tatty shawl. And Duncan Mottershead was watching her from across the street, leaning on the wall of Hindley’s shop, his bowler-hat tilted across his eye-brows, but too grease-stained to be rakish, his right hand in his trouser pocket, grasping as always the comfort of an old sock stuffed with sand.

  It was difficult to know what Hetty Wilson had actually done in Derby. She had not picked up any men, though she had been injudicious with her smiles. That, perhaps, was what had primed the defensive network. Certain sections of Derby society in 1905 were hypersensitive.

  There had been a preposterous rustic flavour about her appearance when first she arrived in town, though it is difficult to know whom she was trying to fool. Herself, perhaps? She came obviously from the easy-going south – she spoke with a regional accent which was resented in and around St Mary’s Gate, but which people could not precisely place. Perhaps she thought she was coming amongst a community of musical comedy rustics. Her hair hung beside her ears in cork-screw ringlets and her bodice was laced across her bosom as if she had just stepped from a stage chorus of Robin Hood, the vivid green of her blouse in aggressive contrast to the crushed strawberry of her sweeping skirts – all in provocative disharmony with the chipped chocolate paint of the scabrous boarding-house for which she made an inexplicable bee-line. Yet there was something about Hetty Wilson in which the observer, against his better judgement, was tempted to believe. It could have derived from her effortlessly healthy complexion, the natural perfection of her skin, the clarity of her eyes. She was in her mid-twenties, but did not have to do much work upon herself to appear eighteen.

  A striking figure, yet they wanted me to believe that they had forgotten her in the hinterland of St Mary’s. I had to waste a good deal of time talking to people who were loth to linger in my company. Fortunately their memories were clearer and less inhibited about the man with the surgical boot whose route I picked up from the Midland Station, across the Market Place and along Irongate. I eventually established that Hetty Wilson had presented herself at Emma Rice’s boarding-house as if she knew exactly where she was coming. She had paid a week’s rent in advance without demur, not even attempting to haggle over Emma’s first demand. Moreover, having installed herself, and changed into clothes barely distinguishable, though cleaner, than the amorphous folds of Tilly Sutcliffe and Martha Lang, she had not demonstrated any obvious reason for being here at all. She had neither looked for nor enquired after work. It was true that she had a way of looking at men that disturbed their regular circle of women – but she had shown an equal skill at not allowing things to develop any further. She gave an impression of robust determination, but it took the form for the time being of conscious patience. Hetty Wilson was waiting for something to happen. Presumably it had to do with the visits that she made twice daily to the Poste Restante counter at the General Post Office.

  Three times a stranger to the town came looking for her, a gentleman on the fringe of early middle life who had the ill luck to miss her on each occasion by the narrowest of margins. Once, indeed, he came so close that she had to engage herself in a labyrinth of tenement yards and private alley-ways. In the arts of evasion she showed herself to be a resourceful woman. At last an almost successful coup brought the gentleman to the very door of Emma Rice’s, but Emma disclaimed all knowledge of her. That must have cost Hetty Wilson supplementary rent.

  Perhaps it was money that she was waiting for at the General Post Office. But for the first few days nothing came, and choosing an unfrequented moment, she pawned for two guineas at Hindley’s a fifteen carat bracelet, inset with oriental pearls. It must have been worth every penny of five.

  She was not known to have spent any of this money. She did not linger by the shop-fronts on her way from the Post Office. And on the morning of the sixth day she came away from the counter with a small white envelope, which she tore open in a corner of the public concourse, apparently not bearing to wait until she was out in the street again.

  She returned rapidly to her lodgings, remained out of sight until the middle of the evening, and then reappeared before the public eye once more in her crushed strawberry and green, running the gauntlet of Duncan Mottershead, Martha Lang and Tilly Sutcliffe, strategically placed in the shadows cast by a wheezing gas-light. She also passed very close to Constable Kewley, who kept his back resolutely turned to her as he peered unconvincingly through the slats of a venetian blind into the darkness of a shop interior.

  Kewley, a hardened constable whose peace and comfort depended on the local balance of power, then moved unobtrusively away. Hetty Wilson, side-stepping to avoid a dollop of horse-droppings that had got itself by no accident on to the pavement, was intended to trip over the toe-cap of Tilly Sutcliffe’s boot, and an altercation was then envisaged during which Martha Lang would reveal, perhaps even use, the thong at her wrist. Duncan Mottershead would then, in exaggeratedly leisurely fashion, untip himself from his leaning-post and amble across the road, reassuring himself that the sand-bag in his pocket was ready for action. He would intervene in the rising strife, staying the hands of the two well rehearsed women with a blunt syllable or two. Ab
out what might have happened next, I can only speculate. Hetty Wilson might have been invited to accept Duncan Mottershead’s protection or to betake her rustic charms elsewhere. It could have been a plain intended case of robbery with violence. I have not been able to discover that there was any particular reason why matters should have come to a head that evening. There are a number of things that continue to puzzle me. I do not know – though I can venture a few guesses – how Mottershead and his henchwomen were aware that Hetty Wilson was going to leave Emma Rice’s precisely when she did. I cannot discover that she herself had done anything to precipitate their decision. Perhaps by now she had merely succeeded in out-waiting her antagonists. Her patience, for whatever purpose she was exercising it, had become too much for their nerves. She was slow to show her hand, so they felt compelled to call it.

  But things did not work out in that way. Tilly’s foot was already out and Hetty tripped over it. But Martha did not uncurl her thong and Mottershead continued to lean against the wall as if he were an indifferent spectator of forthcoming events. Into the orbit of the hissing gas-lamp, down the very middle of the road-way, side-stepping as if he were uncertain whether to allow a brougham to pass, or to stop horse and carriage with the small of his back, another figure was approaching. His air of purpose was unambiguous.

  He was a big man, aged perhaps on the young side of thirty and he had a full ring of beard about his neck and chin in the countryman’s manner, though his cheeks were cleanly shaven. There was a hint of clumsy and suppressed strength about his gait, his arms swinging idly, huge hands hanging loosely like paper bags stuffed with chestnuts: an awesome opponent, but one who looked too slow and lethargic to fight willingly. The only part of him that did not appear relaxed was his left leg, which was stiff at the knee, and which needed a positive effort for every step forward, since it was hampered by a large and unshapely surgical boot.

  Hetty Wilson gave a spontaneous yelp of delight at the sight of him, ran up to him with unathletic, mincing steps, put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him warmly on the cheek. But he seemed impervious to her proximity. He looked down at her without a smile, without, as far as the by-standers could make out, a word of any kind. The look on his face gave nothing away to strangers. He might have been angry with her, he might have been tacitly exasperated, his stony features might have been asking her an unspoken question. The one reaction which he did not display was joy to match her own. A baker’s journeyman cursed them from the box-seat of his van as he reined aside to avoid them. They took a step out of the way and almost fell foul of a rag-and-bone man’s cart that was coming from the opposite direction. Then, when the road was clear, the man took the woman’s wrists and removed her hands from his shoulders. They walked together back to Emma Rice’s, from where they very quickly re-emerged, the man carrying the woman’s Gladstone bag. He put the flat of his hand against her shoulder-blade, but it was to thrust her forward, not to impart personal assurance. She walked obediently beside him, adjusting the rhythm of her steps to his with difficulty, but finding his natural pace after the first few yards.

  Duncan Mottershead and his pair of women remained where they were, taking no ostensible interest. But when Hetty Wilson and her escort were out of sight, Mottershead came away from his wall and without looking at the women strolled in the direction of the Feathers. They adjusted their shawls about their elbows and walked away, making no effort to join him.

  And these were the people who afterwards claimed to be unaware of Hetty Wilson’s existence. But Hetty Wilson, that evening, was on her way to a violent death. They therefore had to be helped to remember.

  It was not too difficult; it merely took time, and time was what I did not have enough of. I knew Martha Lang, Tilly Sutcliffe and Duncan Mottershead at least as well as they thought they knew me. There were little things about them that it had always suited me to keep in reserve – things that as far as I was concerned could remain in the shadows, as long as they co-operated when I needed them. But first I had to brow-beat Constable Kewley.

  ‘This woman, Kewley – you hadn’t said a word about her to your Sergeant, or to Inspector Bramwell.’

  ‘I’d no call to, Inspector Brunt. She didn’t look as if she was breaking any laws.’

  ‘That’s beside the point.’ How often I had tried to impress upon the uniformed branch that any morsel of gossip might one day fill a breach.

  ‘And you were within twenty yards of an impending affray. You were actually edging away from it.’

  ‘I was ready to blow my whistle.’

  ‘Your whistle!’

  ‘You know how it is, Inspector. A lot happened that night. A horse laid down and died in Edward Street. A lady’s dog was set upon by mongrels. But I think I’m beginning to remember this other woman now, sir.’

  ‘You’d better.’

  I hoped he knew that it didn’t matter to me how he organised his beat. He didn’t have to hedge his bets for my sake. But I wanted facts, and I didn’t want to take ten minutes wheedling them out of him. I was angry with him, but I was keeping it strictly unofficial. Old Kewley was too good a bobby to be alienated across a strip of carpet. Things seldom went badly on his strip – and he knew exactly what was a fair price to pay for the King’s Peace.

  ‘I reckoned her a tart,’ he said. ‘From away. And about to be warned off, with no harm done. Which would have saved us all a lot of trouble. The only thing –’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She’d been keeping out of somebody else’s way. An outsider.’

  ‘Not Clubfoot?’

  ‘No. She went up to Clubfoot openly. She was glad to see him. She seemed to expect that he’d feel the same about her.’

  ‘But he didn’t?’

  ‘He didn’t seem to know what to make of her. Or of himself, at that moment.’

  ‘And this other chap?’

  ‘Ex military, I’d say – or a flat-catcher trying to look like one.’

  ‘And not a Derby man?’

  ‘For sure he’s not. Staying at the Bell Inn. Gone now, of course.’

  ‘We’ll be knowing where. In the meantime, anything that comes to your ears had better come to mine.’

  Of the possible informants, I chose Tilly Sutcliffe. I had reasons for thinking she might be the easiest of the three. I bought her an unexpected port and lemon in the Seven Stars. She was a simple soul, incapable of maintaining a consistent lie, but not even easily upset when you’d up-arsed her lack of logic. She weighed up a free drink against the tarnishing of her reputation by being seen talking to the likes of me. The port and lemon won; that was the measure of Tilly Sutcliffe.

  She knew nothing about anyone; was daft enough to include Hetty Wilson in her general declaration of innocence, even though I had not yet mentioned the woman. So I started talking whimsically about Marjorie Haddon; she could hardly pretend ignorance of Marjorie.

  ‘Just a little matter of supplying what is called, in the Offences against the Person Act of 1861, a noxious thing.’

  We didn’t trouble ourselves much about successful abortions and, God knows, in Marjorie Haddon’s case I wouldn’t have wanted to. But Tilly paled.

  ‘I’d rather talk about Hetty Wilson, though,’ I said.

  ‘We can do without her sort here. God’s gift to married men – she thought.’

  ‘Who, in particular?’

  ‘No one in particular, Mr Brunt.’

  Of course not.

  ‘But she didn’t keep her eyes to herself. She was taking her time, if you ask me. She had money – some – but it wasn’t going to last for ever. Emma Rice had driven a tight bargain, and she’d had to raise the second week’s rent on a bangle. After that, I reckon she’d have been back on a job she was no stranger to. But she seemed to be wanting to hold off as long as she could. She was waiting for something through the post. It came – and she went.’

  Tilly got on to the subject of the lame man and was keen to concentrate my attention on him. She mus
t have been relieved that I did not mention Marjorie Haddon again.

  One way or another, Tilly Sutcliffe provided me with most of the details, some of them speculative, I know, which I have chronicled so far. In point of fact, most of it did not help me much. Yet it confirmed a few things, which made it worth while. It is always useful to have one’s guess-work reinforced.

  But I wasn’t led from Derby to the man with the surgical boot. It was the man with the surgical boot who had led me to Derby.

  Corpses do not usually bother me, but I had already heard some striking descriptions of Hetty Wilson in her prime. They contrasted savagely with the purple pulp that somebody had made of her.

  Chapter Two

  Like grand opera, this story has a recurring leitmotif: a series of unannounced arrivals.

  In the manner of most men who have come great distances, Frank Lomas fetched up at his destination early in the evening – a fresh and pleasant evening in September 1904, some six months previous to the appearance of Hetty Wilson in the less salubrious back streets of Derby. One of several odd things about him was that though he had never set foot in the place before, it was abundantly clear that Margreave was his considered destination. There had been a paradoxical quickening of his steps as he set himself at the last long hill into the organic grey stone huddle of the town, a broad smile amidst the halo of beard as he sank with a pewter tankard on to an uncushioned settle, having assured himself of a room at the Adventurers’Arms. He looked at people as if he thought that by some miracle they ought to have been expecting him. This, however, was far from the case. He was given the impression that most of those he had met were reluctant to make his acquaintance. Margreave was not fond of strangers.

  The town was an amorphous cluster of slate-roofed limestone cottages, its streets laid out according to no plan, a once prosperous, now barely even interesting settlement in what is known as the Low Peak, an area much less attractive to tourists than the dales to the north and west, not served by main routes through the county and no longer an object of curiosity except to industrial historians.