Murder at the Dressmaker's Salon, page 23
“It might. It would certainly humiliate her. But I do agree there’s no reason for Gertrude to reveal Myrtle’s secret now, years later.”
“At least we have another piece of the Gertrude Lindsey puzzle. Hopefully we’ll uncover more at Whiteleys.”
“She had a full life,” I said. “She didn’t need to tell so many stories.”
“She made up stories because she couldn’t tell anyone the truth. It was either too painful or too scandalous.”
I studied his profile as he stared straight ahead, blinking into the icy wind. His own past was painful, but he didn’t make up lies to hide behind. He simply avoided talking about it. We all cope in different ways.
I clutched my coat tighter but it did little good. The cold air stung my face. Our cab had no curtain above the half-doors at our legs, and afforded only minimal protection. That’s the problem with hansoms on days when winter wasn’t ready to release us from its grip and succumb to spring.
Whiteleys department store took up almost the entire length of the street. There was no uniformity to the façade. It was not one building but many and each individual shop had once been independent, only to be eventually overrun by the steady march of Whiteleys. Like most department stores, it had begun life as a drapery. Dressmaking was one of its earliest additions, with that department opening in 1868.
Harry and I learned all of this from the manager of the department, Mrs. Jolly. It was the most inappropriate name for the stiff-backed, pinch-lipped woman who escorted us through the workroom to her adjoining office. The large space hummed with the sound of sewing machines but no chatter. Fifty-odd seamstresses hunched over their work, fingers moving deftly, too busy to even pluck an errant thread off the sleeves of their plain black uniforms. Those who looked up as we passed were snapped at by Mrs. Jolly and ordered to stay back an extra five minutes for every five seconds they weren’t concentrating on the task in front of them. I wasn’t sure how she’d keep track of it all, but the women seemed to believe she could and obeyed without question.
Mrs. Jolly invited us to sit then took the chair behind the desk for herself. She clasped her hands together firmly on the desktop and regarded us. “What do you want to know?”
It had taken us some time before we’d been given access to the dressmaking department’s workroom. Mrs. Jolly’s assistant claimed she was busy, but I got the feeling she didn’t believe we worked for the police. It wasn’t until Harry instructed her to contact his father at Scotland Yard that she gave in. She fetched Mrs. Jolly who very quickly came to collect us. While we waited, I studied some of the photographs hanging on the walls of the outer office.
“Do you have any records of employees dating from the time Gertrude Lindsey worked here?” Harry asked the manager. “She was Gertrude Russell then.”
“No. Unfortunately the fire destroyed them all.”
“I remember that fire,” Harry said. “The smoke blanketed the city.”
“We’ve had several fires, but the one in ‘87 was the worst. The store was rebuilt quickly, but we lost all employment records.”
“Were any of your current seamstresses working here in the mid to late seventies and might remember her?”
“My girls are all aged under thirty. I find the younger, unmarried ones are best. Once they start a family, they’re not as reliable.”
From the vacant look on the seamstresses’ faces, I suspected they worked hard. Their pay would be meager and the hours long. They couldn’t even have a friendly chat with the girl seated next to them or this dragon would bring down her wrath on them. By the time they reached thirty, they were probably worn out.
“I remember Gertrude Russell, however. I was a seamstress too, just like her. There were fewer of us then. The department has grown considerably since I took over management.”
“What was she like?” I asked.
She flexed her fingers before re-clasping them. “She was too talkative. She was often getting into trouble for idle chatter. Her work wasn’t bad but it was uneven. She was limited with her skill. Her only saving grace was her worth ethic. She worked hard, I’ll give her that.” It was said grudgingly.
“Why did she leave?” Harry asked.
“I don’t know. She wasn’t forced or anything like that.” The lines on her face had settled into a frown as soon as she saw us, but they now deepened. “She left suddenly and without notice. It was around the time of the accident which is why I remember it. The timing seemed too coincidental to me.”
“What accident?” both Harry and I asked.
The lines on her face reformed, almost into a smile, but not quite. She was relishing telling us. “The manager of the department fell from one of the windows of the residence hall where the staff live. It’s not far from here. We still use it for staff accommodation.”
“Fell?” Harry prompted. “Was she pushed? Did she throw herself off?”
“He not she. Mr. Barrymore.” She thrust out her chin. “I’m the first female manager of the department. As I said, it was an accident. That was the conclusion the police came to.”
“Did you inherit the position after Mr. Barymore’s unfortunate demise?”
“No. There was another before me. And no, he was nowhere near the residence hall at the time. I don’t like your insinuation, Mr. Armitage.”
“Yet you are insinuating that Gertrude Russell had a hand in Mr. Barrymore’s demise. Otherwise, why mention it?”
She unclasped her hands before re-clasping them again. It seemed to be something she did when she was considering her answers. “The general feeling within the company was that he took his own life, but senior management paid the police to conclude it was an accident. It wouldn’t look good for the company if one of its department managers killed himself.”
“Did you and the other seamstresses think it was suicide?” Harry prompted. “Or did you all believe Gertrude had something to do with it?”
For the first time, she lowered her gaze. “Several of us who’d been here for some time suspected she was responsible. When she suddenly left mere days later, we became even more certain. She was that type of person, you see.”
“The murdering type?” I asked, unable to keep the scoff out of my voice.
“The outgoing type. Talkative and forthright. She had opinions about the working conditions here and wasn’t afraid to voice them.”
Heaven help the suffrage movement if women with opinions were considered murderesses, and by their own sex too.
“The thing is, long hours are necessary,” she went on as if we’d asked. “The company needs to turn a profit or it will not succeed, and then where will we all be? Out of work altogether, that’s where. The girls are uneducated. They don’t understand the fundamentals of economics. I taught myself, but many lack the skill or the drive to learn.” She leveled her gaze with mine, challenging me, daring me to disagree with her. “If the girls don’t like it, they may leave. There are others waiting to take their position and are grateful for the work.”
“Gertrude must have understood economics,” I pointed out. “She started her business from nothing and turned it into a success. Indeed, she’s probably the most successful former employee from this department. The company ought to celebrate her achievement and her life. Perhaps you should create some kind of display in the workroom to show the story of Madame Poitiers. It would inspire the girls.”
“We don’t want to encourage them to look up from their work. Besides, there’s no point giving them false hope. They can’t all follow in Gertrude’s footsteps.”
“Nor is it in the company’s best interests to inspire the cogs of the empire to change course.”
She parted her hands. “I’m glad you understand, Miss Fox. As a woman, I thought you might?”
I clenched my teeth to stop my retort. We still needed answers from her.
Fortunately Harry took over the questioning, because I was too livid to keep my tone neutral. “Why do you blame Gertrude for Mr. Barrymore’s death?”
“They often clashed. It was obvious to everyone Gertrude never liked him. She said he was mean to the girls, but he was simply doing his job. The manager has targets to meet, you see.” She tapped the ledger on the desk. “Time frames and quantities must be met. There is a lot of pressure. I didn’t understand this myself in those days, so I admit that we all disliked Mr. Barrymore for his strictness, including me.”
“What about inappropriate behavior?” I asked. “Was he too familiar with any of the girls?”
“Certainly not. He was married. He had children.”
“Did you raise your concerns about his death with the police or senior management?” Harry asked.
“No. We all kept quiet. They made up their minds early in the investigation that it would be swept under the carpet for the sake of the company. Later, I came to regret my silence, but it was too late to go back. No one wanted to dredge up painful memories for Mr. Barrymore’s family. Senior management certainly wouldn’t like it. I decided it was best to let sleeping dogs lie. Anyway, it seems as though Gertrude got her just desserts in the end.”
Her smugness grated on my nerves. “Do you actually have any evidence of her guilt?” I asked. “Or are you basing your judgement on Gertrude’s character and her dislike of Mr. Barrymore?”
“Oh no, there’s more. Before the death was ruled an accident, the police questioned all of us. Gertrude had an alibi for the time of death. All the seamstresses did.” We waited, but she didn’t elaborate. Indeed, she was no longer looking at us again.
“You were each other’s alibis,” I guessed. “You lied to the police and gave false statements about your whereabouts to vouch for your colleagues.”
“Some did, it’s true, but not me.”
“Gertrude?”
“I know she lied. She says she was working late in here finishing something off with one of the other girls, but I saw her in the residence hall only a few minutes before the accident. She couldn’t be in two places at once.”
“The other seamstress told the police Gertrude was with her the entire time?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember who the other seamstress was?”
“No.”
The door opened and the assistant poked her head through the gap. “There’s an issue on the floor that needs your attention, Mrs. Jolly.”
“I’ll be there right away.” Mrs. Jolly stood and indicated we should walk out of the office ahead of her.
We followed the assistant to the outer office, leaving Mrs. Jolly behind to berate one of the girls. The poor thing started to cry, which only earned her a sneering retort from her manager about “useless girls.”
I blocked it out and sifted through the information Mrs. Jolly had given us. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced we now had another motive for Gertrude’s murder. Revenge.
I mentioned this to Harry as we stepped foot on the pavement outside Whiteleys. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “What if someone recently learned that Gertrude could be responsible for Mr. Barrymore’s death?”
“And what if they confronted her about it on Friday morning?” Clearly he’d come to the same conclusion as me. “Who would care enough about Mr. Barrymore to kill all these years later in retribution? His widow and children, for certain, but perhaps a lover or friend too. We need to find out more about Mr. Barrymore, but his employment records were destroyed in the fire. Scotland Yard should have an old report on the case if it was investigated. We can find out where he lived.”
I stopped. “There’s something we can do before we leave here that might help. Children sometimes look like their fathers. If we know what Mr. Barrymore looked like, we could determine if any of our suspects resemble him.”
“The photographs on the wall in the outer office.”
We turned as one and headed back inside, making our way through the shop with its comfortable sofas, gleaming polished counter, and customers flicking through catalogs or having their measurements taken by attentive sales assistants. In the waiting room, Harry asked Mrs. Jolly’s assistant if we could look at the photographs on the wall. I didn’t wait for assent. I checked their dates, etched into a brass plaque nailed to the wall below each framed image.
The photographs were of the dressmaking staff, taken every year on April first since the department opened. “Why weren’t these destroyed in the fire?” I asked.
“They weren’t hanging in here then,” the assistant said. “They were kept on display in the residence hall. It was only after the fire destroyed everything that they brought them over. They had to decorate the walls in here with something, I suppose.” She looked around and sighed. “These are so drab. I don’t know why they didn’t put up designs of our best gowns again. They’re so much more colorful.”
“Here,” I said. Harry joined me, standing close behind and peering over the top of my head at the photograph of thirty women in identical black uniforms and three men. The men were seated in the middle front and all the women stood.
“Which one is Mr. Barrymore?” Harry asked.
“Who’s Mr. Barrymore?” The assistant approached and squinted through her spectacles at the date plaque. “I didn’t work here in ‘76. If you take it off the wall, the names should be on the back.”
Harry took down the picture and turned it over. “Only the men’s names are given. The women are simply listed as ‘seamstresses.’”
“Typical,” I muttered. “Which one is Mr. Barrymore?”
“The left one.” He turned it back around.
“He was quite handsome,” I said, trying to decide if he resembled any of our suspects.
Harry pointed to one of the women. “This is Gertrude.” His finger suddenly moved to point out one of the others. Her face was familiar and didn’t come as a surprise.
But I recognized a third person in the photograph, and that one did surprise me.
Chapter 15
Neither Harry nor I mentioned Mrs. Zieliński by name in the presence of the assistant. There was no need. We knew it was her in the photograph. She was younger, but her face had changed little over the years. I wanted to ask the assistant about the third person, however. If she couldn’t help us, Mrs. Jolly probably could, but I’d rather deal with the friendlier woman here than the dragon in there.
I turned the picture over. “Do you know this fellow?” I indicated the name written in a neat hand on the back. “Mr. Madden.”
“Oh yes, he worked here until six months ago. It was such a shame when he left. He was an institution. Mr. Madden was the store manager, Mr. Whiteley’s right hand.” She pointed out the man sitting in the middle. “That’s Mr. Whiteley himself.”
“Why did Mr. Madden leave?”
“He’s going to manage Pritchards, the new department store opening soon.” She sighed. “None of us could believe he took a position for a rival company. It feels like a betrayal.”
Harry returned the photograph to the wall and we thanked the assistant. Outside, we both agreed we needed to return to the shop and speak to Mrs. Zieliński. She’d lied to us about when she first met Gertrude. She hadn’t answered an advertisement. She knew Gertrude before Maison de Poitiers opened. They worked together at Whiteleys.
“Gertrude probably approached Mrs. Zieliński while she was still working at Whiteleys and invited her to be her first seamstress,” I said.
“As thanks for providing Gertrude with an alibi at the time of Mr. Barrymore’s death,” Harry finished. “Do you think she killed Gertrude all these years later?”
“If she did, I can’t think why.”
“Me either,” he said, striding towards the line of waiting cabs, “but there must be a reason she didn’t tell us they met at Whiteleys.”
“We’ll ask her. If nothing else, she might be able to tell us more about Gertrude’s involvement in Mr. Barrymore’s murder. We’ll also ask her and the other seamstresses why Mr. Madden called at the workshop.”
We’d seen the former store manager of Whiteleys in the lane leaving the workshop a few days ago. It was likely he’d been to see Mrs. Zieliński, his former employee. Was his presence related to Gertrude’s murder or was it a coincidence? And did her murder have something to do with Mr. Barrymore’s death?
The long-ago events at Whiteleys were yet another piece of the puzzle. But instead of helping me see the bigger picture, I only had more questions and more suspects. There were a lot of puzzle pieces now, and I felt as though I could no longer juggle them all.
The cab deposited us on New Bond Street outside Maison de Poitiers. Miss Keane was on duty, standing behind the counter, studying the order book. She was alone.
She looked up upon our entry and her practiced smile vanished. “Oh. It’s you two. Come to harass me again?” she sneered. “Or Paul?”
I dismissed her comments with a flick of my wrist. “We’re only trying to get to the bottom of this mystery, Miss Keane. Sometimes awkward questions have to be asked. We’re here to speak to Mrs. Zieliński.” We headed for the door to the workshop.
“She went out.”
Harry opened the door anyway to check. He closed it again and shook his head at me.
I approached the counter. “Perhaps you can answer something for us. Why was Mr. Madden here the other day?”
“Who?”
“The older gentleman leaving the workshop via the lane.”
She shrugged. “He was here to see Mrs. Zieliński. I didn’t hear their conversation.”
“How did they seem? Angry? Worried?”
She shrugged again. “Nothing like that. It seemed like a normal conversation to me. He did most of the talking. She nodded a lot.”
“When do you expect her back?” Harry asked.
“In about half an hour.”
Harry and I exchanged glances then left the shop. We decided to spend our thirty minutes eating lunch. We headed to Piccadilly Circus to buy something warm and delicious from the pie man.
