The Moving Stone Read online

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Also by this Author

  Preface

  Prologue

  CHAPTER 1 A Discovery

  CHAPTER 2 Helping Isobel

  CHAPTER 3 Samuel Higgins

  CHAPTER 4 Introducing Ella Morse

  CHAPTER 5 Digs in Buxton Road

  CHAPTER 6 The Moving Stone

  CHAPTER 7 West Road

  CHAPTER 8 The Morse Family

  CHAPTER 9 Amelia Jeffs

  CHAPTER 10 A Grave Disturbance

  CHAPTER 11 The Press Office Calls

  CHAPTER 12 Dead in a Ditch

  CHAPTER 13 A Gypsy Curse

  CHAPTER 14 Under Attack

  CHAPTER 15 Tampered Will

  CHAPTER 16 A Sore Head

  CHAPTER 17 Haunted

  CHAPTER 18 Trip to Walthamstow

  CHAPTER 19 Ill-gotten Gains

  CHAPTER 20 More Victims

  CHAPTER 21 A Murder of Crows

  CHAPTER 22 Telegram

  CHAPTER 23 Break In

  CHAPTER 24 Making Sense of the Census

  CHAPTER 25 The List of Suspects Grows

  CHAPTER 26 What Happened in West Road?

  CHAPTER 27 Quandary

  CHAPTER 28 Suffer the Innocent

  CHAPTER 29 How and Why

  CHAPTER 30 Who?

  CHAPTER 31 Lost and Found

  CHAPTER 32 A Puzzle

  CHAPTER 33 In Hot Pursuit

  CHAPTER 34 As Bad As It Gets

  CHAPTER 35 Epilogue

  CHAPTER 36 Afterword

  THE MOVING STONE

  Jacqueline Beard

  Copyright © 2021 Jacqueline Beard

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of Dornica Press

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  The Lawrence Harpham Mysteries are published by Dornica Press

  The author can be contacted on her website https://jacquelinebeardwriter.com/

  While there, why not sign up for her FREE newsletter.

  ISBN: 1-83-829551-8

  ISBN: 978-1-83-829551-6

  First Printing 2021

  Dornica Press

  Also, by this author:

  Lawrence Harpham Murder Mysteries:

  The Fressingfield Witch

  The Ripper Deception

  The Scole Confession

  The Felsham Affair

  Short Stories featuring Lawrence Harpham:

  The Montpellier Mystery

  Box Set containing

  The Fressingfield Witch, The Ripper Deception & The Scole Confession

  Novels:

  Vote for Murder

  Morse Family Swaffham

  John, born 1787, died August 1830

  Ann (nee Howes, born 1792, died July 1830

  Arthur, born 1814 died September 1856

  Ella, born 1815 died September 1852

  Caroline, born 1817, died September 1835

  Marian born 1818, died December 1843

  Jane, born 1819, died July 1860

  Margaret Anna, born 1821, died December 1903

  Isabella, born 1823, died of convulsions October 1880

  Henry Porston, born 1825, died on a voyage from Melborne August 1853

  Herbert, born 1826 drowned August 1858

  Philip, born 1828, died September 1836

  Anne, born 1830, died 1831

  The West Ham Vanishings - Missing/Murdered Children

  Eliza Carter, vanished West Ham January 1881 - never found

  Mary Seward vanished West Ham April 1882 - never found

  Susan Luxton, kidnapped Stratford May 1882 - survived

  Amelia Jeffs, strangled West Ham January 1890 - died

  Ms Kerridge assaulted Walthamstow February 1890 - survived

  Annie West assaulted Walthamstow December 1892 - died

  Elizabeth Skinner strangled Walthamstow July 1893 - survived

  Florrie Rolph strangled Walthamstow July 1895 - died

  William Barratt strangled Upton Park September 1897 - died

  Mary Jane Voller stabbed Barking January 1899 - died

  Bertha Russ suffocated Little Ilford March 1899 - died

  Monday, May 15, 1882

  "Well, I never." The man leaned forward and peered at the smudged print of the newspaper, which he'd hastily acquired from the newsstand on Stratford Road. He smoothed the pages with calloused hands and looked again as if the words might have changed in the intervening moments. They had not. Disappearance from West Ham screamed the headline. They were bold words implying an important story, yet sandwiched between two trivial articles: one, a recommendation to increase the magistrate's clerk's salary and the other about chicken thievery. He had almost overlooked the story. It wasn't as if disappearances in West Ham were uncommon. There had been several, and the situation was getting worse. But it was a matter of knowing what to believe.

  Several years previously, two girls had vanished – simply vanished into the ether, as if whisked away by fairies. They had never returned, and after two years of fruitless searching, the chances were that they never would. But the newspaper reporting was getting out of hand. Anyone absent from their workplace or having left home without notifying their kin was in danger of being the subject of rash assumptions by the press. Indeed, a local reporter had written about a certain Miss Sophia Marsh, maiden lady and elderly spinster of the parish who'd gone missing back in April. Recently located, the newsman, no doubt with his tail between his legs, was now writing about her in less hysterical terms. Sergeant Sewell of K division had tracked her down to Wellesley Road, Leytonstone which she had rented, telling no one of her plans. "Eccentric", they had said in the article with an unsubtle reference to an unhinged mind. It was easier to pass comment on her sanity, he supposed, and imply that she was a dotty old lady than backtrack on the initial panicky account. Still, it was entertaining reading, although the article that followed was not.

  The man glanced at the wall clock and gulped a cup of tepid tea. He'd better finish the paper quickly as he was due on site soon and had been late the previous day. Old man Riley had no tolerance for poor timekeeping. He had no patience for anything, come to think of it, and had fired Gal Martin the week before for taking home a roll of dog-eared wallpaper. The mice had nibbled it in the storeroom, rendering its condition too poor to use on a new property. Riley had high standards for a builder and would have ripped it off the wall in a heartbeat. But that wasn't a good enough reason for him to tolerate workers removing things without asking. It could have been me, the man thought, remembering when he had 'borrowed' a couple of planks and the dregs of a tin of white paint from the last empty house Riley had built. There but for the grace of God...

  He turned again to the second paragraph of the article that had caught his eye. Another disappearance of a singular kind is also reported from West Ham concerning a little girl named Susan Luxton. The six-year-old girl is the daughter of a railway mechanic living in Victoria Terrace, West Ham Lane. The man was familiar with the grubby little terrace – slum houses, poorly built and in need of attention that they would never get. He wouldn't board a dog there, much less a child. He didn't know the family and had never heard of the girl, but that wasn't the point. According to the article, little Susan Luxton had gone to Station Street with a friend last Monday afternoon. That would be the eighth of May, he thought, counting on his fingers. Yes, he nodded – definitely Monday the eighth. On reaching Station Street, her playmate's mo
ther had told Susan to go straight home, but she'd never arrived. At six o'clock on Monday evening, Susan had turned up alone in Ludgate Circus, where a police officer found her. The little girl, bewildered and shaken, remembered nothing of her ordeal. Having questioned her, the police concluded she'd been drugged in Stratford and removed to London while insensible. It was a fair assumption. Susan was too young to have walked from Stratford to the city in two hours. She was not a strong child, and it was beyond her capability.

  The man smiled and stretched his legs as a feeling of satisfaction enveloped him. He revelled in the article and the subsequent realisation that he knew something nobody else was aware of. He'd been there and now realised that he'd witnessed an act never meant for public consumption. It gratified him sensuously, like the first time his mother had asked him to slaughter a chicken. He'd been dreading wringing its neck, but the sensation was surprisingly pleasant.

  The Susan Luxton article had triggered a memory. The man had been working a few streets away from Stratford station on the Monday in question and had seen two little girls strolling together hand in hand. And less than a quarter of an hour later, while walking home, he had seen one of them again. This time she was with a woman – a woman he knew and who lived nearby. He had watched the woman offer the girl a drink and thought nothing of it at the time. He'd assumed the sleepy girl was a grandchild. How was he to know the woman was up to no good? Perhaps it hadn't been Susan Luxton. He might simply have witnessed a kindly act from an old lady to a well-loved child. But the sketch of the girl in the article was identical to the child he had seen. It was too much of a coincidence to ignore. But what was he to do about it? A responsible man would tell the police. He would march up to West Ham Lane police station, demand to see the officer in charge of K division, and perform his civic duty. That's what a responsible man would do. But to what gain? There would be nothing in it for the responsible man, who might even fall under suspicion himself. No. Helping the police was not his way, and neither was surrendering an opportunity for profit. Instead, he decided to mull it over, place the newspaper in a drawer for safe-keeping, and go to work.

  CHAPTER 1

  A Discovery

  Thursday, February 2, 1899

  Dear Michael

  How should I begin this letter? I have tried to write it three times already, and every page has ended up in the fire. I don't know what to say to you or how to explain myself. As much as I enjoyed seeing you again, I cannot help but think it would have been better had our paths not crossed. Our unexpected meeting has complicated matters, Michael, for there is still so much I cannot tell you. It's not that I don't want to, but circumstances prevent it. A situation arose – several situations if I'm honest, that made it easier for me to close the door on my time in Bury Saint Edmunds. And as much as I miss living there, I do not regret my decision. I cannot, for it has forced me into living a life that I thought was beyond my capabilities and may not have risked left to my own devices. My aunt's illness presented me with an impossible dilemma and fortunately provided the means to overcome it. But I digress.

  I must once again prevail upon you to keep my secret, at least as much of it as you know, most notably, my whereabouts. It is a lot to ask of you, especially as you don't understand why I must remain anonymous to my former friends, but do not tell anybody that we are in contact. I cannot emphasise how important this is, though I know I do not need to labour the point as you have displayed your discretion time and again. Of all the people I could have encountered, I am glad it was you. I miss your friendship, and I am happy to keep up my end of the bargain by writing to you regularly, as promised.

  But what were the chances of us meeting, Michael? I only decided to watch the wedding at the last minute. The bride was not a particular acquaintance of mine, though I knew she was getting married that day. I woke up early wondering whether to go. But curiosity got the better of me, and I headed to the church to wait for a while. After all, what woman can walk past a glowing bride without lingering to admire her finery? So, I watched until they left the church, chatted to some friends and was turning to go when lo-and-behold, you appeared from nowhere. I had not realised that Edna was marrying a member of the clergy, let alone a man with whom you were acquainted. I would have thought twice, had I known. Please don't take offence – I'm only teasing you, Michael. Now that I have recovered from the shock of seeing you and had time to gather my thoughts, I am pleased to renew our friendship. I would not undo our chance encounter even if I could.

  I want to tell you how sorry I am for leaving in such a rush, and I hope you understand my shock at seeing you. If I appeared hostile, then I apologise whole-heartedly. You asked a lot of questions which I failed to answer, and I will do my best to remember what you said and address them in this letter. Be warned – it might go on for several pages. Even though some things must remain in confidence, there is still much to tell.

  How did I end up in Swaffham? Well, that is a long story. As you know, my aunt was ill. She died, and her death threw my life into turmoil, presenting grave difficulties with which I will not trouble you. I miss her so much. We had grown close during the prolonged periods I stayed with her, and I must admit that her death hit me as hard as any I have known. She always said that I would receive a small legacy when she died. Well, her idea of small differed greatly from mine. I was expecting a trinket or at best a piece of furniture, but Aunt Floss left me everything, including her house. Shocked and distressed by her death, I went first to my mother in Norfolk. But being independent and with a pressing need for stability, I could not stay there long, and started to look for a suitable place to live.

  I soon discovered a property in Swaffham perfectly suited to my needs which was not dissimilar to my home in Bury. You will see from the address on the reverse of this envelope that it is a cottage – a comfortable flint cottage on the south side of Norwich Road. My home overlooks the churchyard giving a pleasant view and a welcome degree of privacy. Talking of which, I must ask you to destroy the envelope as I cannot risk anyone finding me if they catch sight of my address.

  Now, back to the description of my cottage. It has two bedrooms and a pretty little garden which I tend when I can. But my time comes at a premium for I have found myself a few hours work each day in a tea room. My new occupation might surprise you given the difference between it and my old life in private investigation. True, I am not exercising my brain in the same way, and I miss the cut and thrust of detecting, but I am content to serve tea to the good folk of Swaffham. They have treated me kindly, and although my work can be a little boring, it brings me into daily contact with people, and I have made friends. My routine rarely changes. I walk from my cottage, across the churchyard and to the cafe. It is a pleasant walk and gives me the chance to call in on Norma twice daily while she cares for something very dear to me. Norma has become a close friend, always offering kindness and support. I am content with my new life and never lonely.

  I hope you are all keeping well, and I trust your brother continues his work with the Freemasons in Bury St Edmunds. No doubt, he is still enamoured with motor vehicles of all kinds. I expect that he still has the Arnold-Benz unless he has succumbed to the lure of a newer model. And Lawrence – I suppose he is enjoying married life and all the delights of London? No, don't answer that. It is better to let sleeping dogs lie, and I beg you not to mention him in your letters.

  I am delighted that the church finally gave you a living in a parish close to Bury Saint Edmunds. Your friends and family will be pleased to see you so happily settled and within easy reach. It is so good to be in contact again, Michael, but the night is drawing in, and I must close for now.

  Your affectionate friend,

  Violet

  CHAPTER 2

  Helping Isobel

  Wednesday, March 1, 1899

  "Dennington Park Road, please." Lawrence Harpham boarded the hansom carriage nervously. He rarely travelled alone by cab since Valentine Jennings had coshed him o
ver the head three years earlier. Lawrence had spent an unpleasant night in his captor's cellar surrounded by rat traps and a dead body, before finally extricating himself from the situation. It had left him wary of solo trips – not so cautious that he wouldn't take them at all, but enough to keep it to the bare minimum. This carriage ride had already brought a surge of traumatic memories – a likely reaction to his imminent meeting with Jennings' former employer, Isabel Smith. It was to her home in Hampstead that the carriage was currently heading.

  Lawrence stared from the window and tried to take his mind off the empty seat beside him. The inner door handle was missing, the window was stiff, and it lacked an obvious escape route. But although the carriage was travelling apace, the driver showed no signs of slowing down to lure Lawrence to his doom. Eventually, he relaxed and watched the world go by as he listened to the comforting clip-clop of hooves. Lawrence was almost asleep by the time the carriage drew to a halt outside number thirty-five, Dennington Park Road.

  Isabel was waiting inside and waved to him from the first-floor window as he alighted from the carriage. He paid the driver and loitered by the low wall of the handsome, four-storey red-brick building until she appeared. She must have taken the stairs at speed as she was out of breath when she closed the door and hurried towards him, flashing a broad smile.

  "Lovely to see you," she said, offering her hand. "Thank you for coming all this way. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it."

  "Your letter was a welcome distraction," said Lawrence. "My housekeeper has decamped to Norwich to spend a fortnight with the family of her intended. The thought of trying to manage the office and my domestic affairs alone was enough to send me running to London."