Bertie and the Tinman Read online

  The Archer residence, Falmouth House, turned out to be an impressive mansion for a jockey, a multi-gabled redbrick structure in its own grounds on the Bury Road. He had built it three years before when he married the daughter of the trainer, John Dawson. But it proved to be an ill-fated home for the couple. Their infant son died there a few hours after birth in January, 1884, and the following November, his wife also died after giving birth to a second child. And now Falmouth House had seen a third fatality within three years of being built.

  My carriage was met by a fellow in a Norfolk jacket whom I took to be one of Archer’s family until he announced himself as Captain Buckfast.

  Buckfast. Mark his name. I knew it from the racing calendar. He owned and raced horses, and was a close friend of Archer’s. I assumed he was sent by the family to meet the royal visitor on account of his army rank. That’s the usual form: find an ex-officer and push him forward. Buckfast was adequate to the task, if somewhat diffident. I would have said he was past forty, but my estimates of age have given me several unwelcome surprises of late. I find that I’m classing men of my own age as some years senior to me. I shall have to revise my estimation of what forty-five actually means in terms of thinning hair and thickening elsewhere. If you want to picture Captain Buckfast, he was possessed of a military man’s mustache with waxed ends, behind which lurked a less dramatic countenance, brown eyes set widely apart and pale lips that didn’t propose to smile without excessive encouragement. His most interesting feature was a crippled left arm that I learned later had been practically hacked off with a spear in the Zulu War.

  Not wishing to advertise my presence, I sent the carriage away and asked Buckfast about the arrangements. Once I had estab­lished the plan of the house, I had him show me to the bathroom. I’m pretty adept at hide-and-seek in country houses. After a quiet cigar, while the coroner went through the preliminaries down­stairs, I planned to make my way to the dining room adjacent to the drawing room. From there, I could follow the proceedings through an open door without being observed by the press.

  It didn’t go quite as planned.

  The cacophony of voices downstairs increased as more people arrived. Apart from the coroner and his officials, there were witnesses, the family, the jury and the press. When I judged from a sudden abatement of the noise that the inquest had begun, I leaned over the landing rail and heard the jury sworn in. The words weren’t audible, but I could tell the different tones of voices. I soon picked up the measured accents of the coroner.

  I decided to make my move down the stairs. Unfortunately, I had only reached the third or fourth when I heard the scraping of chairs.

  I stopped as if petrified.

  A door opened, and people came out into the hall below. They started up the stairs.

  Mercifully, I was obscured from their view by the bend in the stairway. I turned and reclimbed those four stairs and pushed open the nearest door.

  I was in a bedroom, which didn’t surprise me. The room was occupied, which did. The occupant was lying in an open coffin. I was alone with the mortal remains of Fred Archer.

  But not for long. The jury was coming upstairs to view the body.

  CHAPTER 3

  My first instinct was to look for cover. I had the choice of a large mahogany wardrobe or the space under the bed. Neither struck me as suitable. If a lady’s honor were in jeopardy, I wouldn’t think twice about climbing into a wardrobe or taking my chance beside a chamber pot, but this wasn’t that sort of emergency.

  I glanced toward the curtains and dismissed that possibility as well. I wasn’t a performer in a French farce. My status in the nation obliged me to conduct myself in as dignified a fashion as circumstances permitted. There was nothing I could do except abandon all ideas of remaining anonymous.

  I took up a regal stance (left thumb tucked behind overcoat lapel, right hand holding stick, hat and gloves at waist level) beside the coffin as the coroner led the jury into the room. He was giving them encouragement in a well-practiced manner. “. . . a dismal, but necessary, formality. However, gentlemen, the ap­pearance of the deceased is not so disturbing as you might anticipate, the bullet having passed through the mouth and exited at the back of the head. So, if you please . . .”

  They lined up on either side. To my astonishment, no one looked twice at me. They simply joined me beside the coffin. I could only assume that their melancholy duty had blinded them to everything else, even an encounter with the Heir Apparent.

  The coroner made a small lifting gesture with his fingers that I supposed for a moment had some ritualistic significance. Then he repeated, “If you please . . .” and it dawned on me that he was gesturing to me.

  Here I must intrude a sartorial note. In keeping with the somber occasion, I had dressed in a dark overcoat with black velvet revers and black necktie, and I was carrying a silk hat and black kid gloves. Either the coroner had taken me for an undertaker, or he was giving me the opportunity to pass myself off as such.

  I didn’t need any more bidding. Obligingly, I bent forward and lifted the piece of linen that covered poor Fred’s face.

  He was a pitiful sight. The last time I had seen him was a fortnight before, directly after he had lost the Cambridgeshire in a desperate finish, and he had looked extremely dejected then, far too troubled for a man who had won the Derby earlier in the year. It sounds trite to say that he looked decidedly worse now, and I had better explain myself better. It was unmistakably the Archer profile: the broad forehead, well-shaped nose, prominent cheek­bones and neat, determined jaw. Still, essentially, a young man’s face. I daresay rigor mortis produces strange effects, and no doubt what I noticed was nothing remarkable, but I swear that there was an expression on the features. An expression of terror.

  “The jury may wish to examine the back of the head,” the coroner said to me, jolting me out of my thoughts. There was no doubt of it; he took me for an undertaker.

  I was starting to wonder if I was equal to the job when one of the jurymen, bless him, spoke up. “I suggest we defer to the medical evidence on this. None of us are used to looking at bullet wounds.”

  There were general murmurs of support.

  “Very well,” said the coroner. He turned to me. “In that case, that will be sufficient.”

  I replaced the sheet immediately, and took a step back.

  “While we are here,” the coroner told the jury, “kindly observe the window where one of the witnesses, Mrs. Coleman, will tell you she was standing before the fatality occurred. Also the night commode beside the bed where the revolver was apparently kept. And the hearth rug upon which the deceased fell. And now, with your cooperation, I propose to resume the inquest downstairs.”

  They shuffled out without another word between them, leaving me with the corpse. I must confess to feeling slightly piqued that they hadn’t recognized me, but on balance it had turned out well. And the story of Bertie the undertaker would go down famously at my birthday party.

  Looking back on my career as an amateur detective, I see that it really began when I was left alone in Archer’s bedroom. Purely by accident, I’d been afforded a splendid opportunity of searching for clues to the mystery of his sudden death. I’m not given to rummaging through other people’s possessions, you understand, but as the man in question was in no mind to object, I made an exception here. So before following the others downstairs, I opened the wardrobe.

  The late Mr. Archer had a fine collection of suits, which I methodically searched. Unhappily for me, he also had an efficient valet who had emptied the pockets. I didn’t find so much as a spare button. I turned to the tallboy beside the washstand. Nothing of interest to an investigator had been left there. I searched the small chest of drawers and the night commode without result. There wasn’t a letter or a visiting card to be found. Not even a betting slip. I couldn’t believe that any man led such a colorless life, least of all the most
famous jockey in history. Someone had diligently removed every personal item, even photographs. Every bedroom I’ve ever slept in—and I speak from not inconsiderable experience—has had its display of family photographs on the tallboy: Mama and Grandmama and the Great Aunts and Our Wedding (which I generally turn to the wall). In this room of death there wasn’t a picture of the late Mrs. Archer, or even the child so tragically orphaned. I left without a clue, but with my curiosity vastly increased.

  Captain Buckfast was giving evidence as I descended the stairs. I moved unobtrusively across the hall and into the empty dining room, where a chair had been thoughtfully provided close to the open door. I was afforded a view of the coroner and the witness without exposing myself to the eyes of the press.

  “About four years,” Buckfast was saying.

  “You were very intimate with him?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You visited him frequently?”

  “Yes.”

  “And accompanied him to America on a visit?”

  “That is so.”

  “That was toward the end of 1884, after his wife died?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you have formally identified the body upstairs as that of Frederick James Archer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, would you tell us when you last saw him alive, and how he appeared?”

  The invitation to provide some information of his own ap­peared to throw the worthy captain slightly off-balance. He was happier with one-word responses. “I was with him until about noon yesterday. He appeared to be much improved, so I went out. When I returned shortly after two, I heard that he had shot himself.”

  “Did you ever hear him speak of suicide?”

  “Never.”

  “Did you think he was a man likely to do such an act?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You had conversation with him in the morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he say anything that might have indicated such an intention?”

  “No, sir.”

  The coroner paused. Buckfast stood rigidly waiting for the next question. If someone had shouted, “About face,” I am sure he would have obeyed.

  “You noticed nothing unusual in his conversation?”

  “Only the wandering.”

  The coroner leaned forward to catch the word. “The what?”

  “The wandering. He would converse to a certain extent and then seemed to wander.”

  “I see. How would you describe his state of mind when you left him at noon?”

  “Happy and contented.”

  “Really?” The coroner picked up a pen from the silver inkstand in front of him, dipped it in the ink and made a note. He resumed, “The deceased had recently been depriving himself of food. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why, exactly?”

  “He was wasting for the Cambridgeshire. He rode St. Mirin at eight stone, seven pound.”

  “This was an exceptionally low weight for the deceased to achieve?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was a tall man for a jockey?”

  “Five feet, eight inches.”

  “By ‘wasting,’ you mean shedding weight by starving him­self?”

  “And other methods,” volunteered the captain.

  “Could you be more specific?”

  “He used Turkish baths. And his mixture.”

  “His mixture?”

  “A potion he took.”

  “Of what, precisely, did this potion consist?”

  “I couldn’t say. He was very secretive about it.”

  “It was purgative in effect?”

  “I think you’d find it so.”

  The coroner gave a thin smile. “I am most unlikely to try. Thank you, Captain. I have no more questions for you, unless the jury wishes to ask you anything.”

  A chair was found for the next witness, Mrs. Emily Coleman, the jockey’s sister. She was deeply affected by the tragedy, and even the simple formality of identifying herself caused her diffi­culty. In appearance and manner she reminded me slightly of my youngest sister Beatrice, with her forlorn, yet winsome, look.

  After an interval while we all shifted uneasily in our chairs, Mrs. Coleman found her voice, and then it was difficult to stop her.

  “I live here, in my brother’s house, and I was with him when he died. I have been with him constantly since he was brought home from Lewes races on Thursday.”

  “That would have been the fourth of November,” the coroner put in to assist his clerk, but the lady hadn’t paused.

  “I didn’t think he was very ill that evening, and he went to bed about half past eleven. The next day, he was unable to get up, so I sent for Dr. Wright, and he took his temperature and it was so high, he said he wanted a second opinion, but Fred refused. Dr. Wright spoke to me and insisted that Dr. Latham was sent for from Cambridge on the Saturday—”

  “Sixth of November,” interposed the coroner.

  “. . . and by this time poor Fred was wandering in his mind. He seemed to forget things he had said a few minutes previous. He wouldn’t take his medicine. He just kept asking for his mixture. The doctors said he was suffering from a severe chill. They arranged for two nurses to come and help me. The funny thing was that by Monday he appeared to be much better. I had several long conversations with him.”

  At the rate she was pouring out words, I could well believe it. How much the patient had been allowed to contribute was another question.

  “Although he was better, he still wandered in his mind at times, and he was very anxious whether he was going to get over it. Then about two o’clock he said he wanted to speak to me alone. He told me to send the nurse away, which I did.”

  “So we are coming to the fatal incident,” said the coroner in a fortissimo observation that finally induced Mrs. Coleman to pause in her narrative. He was enabled to add, with less bellows, “Tell me, did you notice anything peculiar in his manner?”

  “No, he was quite normal. It was nothing unusual for him to ask me to send one of the nurses away, and I thought nothing of it. After she’d gone, I walked toward the window and looked out. Fred suddenly said, ‘Are they coming?’ Then I heard a noise, and when I turned, he was out of bed and walking across the room, near the door. To my horror, I saw that he had a gun in his hand. I ran toward him and tried to push the gun to one side. He put one arm around my neck and thrust me against the door. I don’t know where he got the strength from. He had the revolver in his left hand. Then he put it to his mouth and . . .” Mrs. Coleman bowed her head and sobbed.

  At a nod from the coroner, another woman stepped forward to comfort the witness. I think we all felt profoundly sympathetic. No one who had heard the account could have failed to picture the horror of what Mrs. Coleman had endured. I could imagine what the more lurid newspapers would make of it.

  When the lady had recovered sufficiently, the coroner said, “There are just a few more details the court requires from you. During this scene that you have just described, did the deceased utter any other words?”

  “I’ve told you the only words he spoke.”

  “‘Are they coming?’”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you speak to him?”

  “I had no chance. I was screaming for help. Nobody heard me, because the door had closed in the struggle. I got help eventually by ringing the bell.”

  “How long did the whole transaction take, would you esti­mate?”

  “Not above two minutes, sir.”

  “And how would you account for it?”

  “He seemed to be seized with a sudden impulse. I can’t put it better than that.”

  That concluded Mrs. Coleman’s evidence. She was helped away from the chair.

 
What would you, dear reader, have been thinking at this stage? From the evidence given by Captain Buckfast and Mrs. Coleman, did Archer’s behavior sound like a fit of delirium or an aberration of the brain, as the press had suggested?

  The crime of suicide presents us with a dilemma. On the one hand, it is an abominable act, punishable by law if the miscreant is unsuccessful in his attempt. On the other, we feel the profoundest sympathy for the close relatives of an individual who has taken his life. This lures us into hypocrisy. If a man is stopped before he pulls the trigger, we send him to prison. If we are too late, we look for signs that he was temporarily insane. From the evidence thus far, it appeared likely that Archer knew what he was doing. I looked forward with interest to the medical witnesses.

  First, however, we had Archer’s valet, Harry Sarjent. It was he who had first answered the bell and come to the aid of Mrs. Coleman. He explained how he had seen his master lying on the hearth rug, and how he had picked up the revolver that had fallen from Archer’s hand. His evidence was all about the gun. About a month previously, Archer had become nervous about a recent burglary in Newmarket and sent his revolver for repair. It had been given to him as a present by a grateful owner. He had loaded it himself and given the valet instructions to put it in the night commode beside his bed when he was at home. At other times, the valet was directed to sleep in the house, with the gun beside him. When Archer had returned from Brighton on the Thursday, the valet, in accordance with instructions, had deposited the revolver in the drawer of the commode.