Chapter XXI: Jenny Hamshaw

“Nobody knows anything. Who are the members of the Grand Lodge, where it holds its meetings, who are the Twenty-Thirders, and why. The only thing the poor simps are sure about is that twice a year there is money for nothing for somebody. And for the rest, they’re satisfied to go on gripping and passwording and secret-signing, and singing their silly songs, and rooting for their silly lodges,” said Toby Marsh.

“Who does know?” asked Inspector Bullott, taking his pipe from his mouth.

“The Grand Prior, and nobody else,” said Toby promptly. “I’ve been into this because I thought it was good graft. I’ve nosed and I’ve pried, and I’ve brought the Sons of Ragousa down to the Book of the Law.”

“What the devil is the Book of the Law?” asked the astonished police officer.

“It’s a book that has the ritual and system of the Ragousas written down to the last dot. The Grand Prior wrote it, and the Grand Prior has it. When the Grand Prior dies, it will be handed over to the new Grand Prior. That is the story I’ve heard, and it sounds true.”

“Is there any graft in it at all?” asked Bill.

Toby Marsh shook his head.

“No; that is the surprising thing about the Ragousas. It’s an honest-to-heaven society; does a whole lot of good, builds cottage hospitals for seamen, donates lifeboats--most of its lodges are in maritime towns, and, I suppose, a third of its membership is made up of sailors--it runs an orphanage at Newcastle, and a home for old sailors at Gosport. They’re certainly tough with members who get fresh or who defy their rules, but so far as I know, even in this they have never broken a law. There have been no whippings or burnings, and I haven’t been able to trace an old Ragousa that has been ridden out of town on a rail. Oh yes, they’re all right, only--” he shook his head.

“Only what?” asked Bill.

“Only I don’t understand old man Laffin being chief of the Twenty-Third Degree. That isn’t right to me.”

Inspector Bullott was thoughtfully puffing at his pipe.

“I’ve been thinking over this murder,” he said. “Does it strike you that Brother John may have offended the Ragousas?”

Toby Marsh did not scoff at the idea.

“I don’t know,” he said, rising; “it’s a queer… ’Scuse me, folks, I’ve got an appointment on the right side of the law. Know Jenny Hamshaw? You’ve missed sump’n’…!”

There were two subjects very dear to the heart of Mrs. Caroline Hamshaw. The first of these, the super-excellent qualities of heart and brain in her only child; the second, Murder as a Fine Art.

When she was not extolling the virtues of her daughter and her social triumphs, her generosity, her sweetness of disposition and her amazing exclusiveness, she was supplying her audience with details of crimes which had evidently been objects of intensive study.

It had been Mrs. Hamshaw’s fortune as a girl to give evidence in a veritable murder trial, and this experience was probably responsible for the interest she took in crime thereafter.

She had one paying guest, to the presence of whom her high-class daughter offered no objection; for, despite her mother’s encomiums, Miss Hamshaw was by nature mean, and had exact ideas about the value of money, and Mr. Toby Marsh paid regularly and never grumbled about extras.

Miss Hamshaw’s rigid view on economy was, if the truth be told, the skeleton in her mother’s cupboard, and on the evening Bill Holbrook was initiated into the full membership of the Proud Sons of Ragousa, the elder lady, a stout, morose woman with a strong facial resemblance to the late Queen Victoria, sat with her plump hands folded and a tear trickling down her large nose, listening with proper humility to the admonitions of her child.

“I’m not made of money, Mother; and really, I think I’m doing enough for you. I’ve given you this house--at least, I let you live rent free--and I’ve spent hundreds on furniture, _and_ I’m allowing you three pounds a week.”

Mrs. Hamshaw murmured something about the high cost of living, and was snapped to silence.

“I haven’t had an engagement this past six months--where do you think I get the money from? Why don’t you get another boarder? I suppose, because you see ‘La Florette’ in big letters on the billboards, you think I’m a millionaire--but salaries are not what they were, and what with my flat and my car and what not, I have a struggle to make both ends meet.”

“I’m sure I do my best to make the money go round,” said Mrs. Hamshaw gloomily. “There are times when I wonder whether I wouldn’t be better off if I was dead and in my grave.”

To which suggestion Florette made no helpful reply.

“Mr. Marsh wouldn’t like another boarder,” the old woman went on, “and I don’t know that I could be bothered. I’m not so young as I was. When I was a girl in Bath working for the Carens--him that murdered his wife, and----”

“Don’t give us any horrors,” begged Florette, well acquainted with her mother’s weakness. “I know all about Caren.”

“The child went to the workhouse, and a doctor adopted her--Dr.--now, what was his name? He called her Carew--Laffin, that was it!--What’s wrong, my love?”

La Florette was staring at her mother.

“Carew--what was her first name?”

“Elizabeth; a pretty little thing with red hair. It’s a funny thing about her, that she wasn’t Caren’s child at all. I knew everything about it.…”

The girl was listening, open-mouthed.

“A middle-aged man, Mr. Leiff Something--I remember the ‘Leiff’ because it was unusual. He married a young girl, and left her with the Carens, when he went back to America… he was American. He got ill and couldn’t come back, and a week after the baby was born her mother died. Mrs. Caren never had a child, and she got so fond of the little mite that, when Mr. Leiff… Stone! That’s the name! When he cabled to ask what had happened, Mrs. Caren said that they were both dead, mother and child. She used to cry about the lie she told, and robbing the baby out of a good home. Mr. Leiff What’s-his-name… Stone, that’s it… well, he was rich--they say the news turned him crazy----”

La Florette, started up, her eyes blazing.

“Mother, you’re not to tell this to anybody in the world, do you hear? Betty Carew has got to stay the daughter of a murderer, and that’s what everybody has got to know----”

A gentle cough behind her made her turn her head.

Mr. Toby Marsh, hat in hand, stood in the doorway, an apologetic smile on his face.