The Corpse of St James's Read online

  Table of Contents

  The Dorothy Martin Mysteries from Jeanne M. Dams

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Foreword

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The Dorothy Martin Mysteries from Jeanne M. Dams

  THE BODY IN THE TRANSEPT

  TROUBLE IN THE TOWN HALL

  HOLY TERROR IN THE HEBRIDES

  MALICE IN MINIATURE

  THE VICTIM IN VICTORIA STATION

  KILLING CASSIDY

  TO PERISH IN PENZANCE

  SINS OUT OF SCHOOL

  WINTER OF DISCONTENT

  A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT *

  THE EVIL THAT MEN DO *

  THE CORPSE OF ST JAMES’S *

  * available from Severn House

  THE CORPSE OF ST JAMES’S

  A Dorothy Martin Mystery

  Jeanne M. Dams

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First world edition published 2012

  in Great Britain and in the USA by SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of 9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  Copyright © 2012 by Jeanne M. Dams.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Dams, Jeanne M.

  The corpse of St James’s.

  1. Martin, Dorothy (Fictitious character) – Fiction.

  2. Detective and mystery stories.

  I. Title

  813.5'4-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-295-5 (Epub) ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8185-4 (cased) ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-440-0 (trade paper) Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  This book is dedicated to the memory of Christopher Dean, late chairman of the Dorothy L. Sayers Society and dear friend. Without his help many of my books could not have been written. He and his delightful wife Christine provided me, over the years, with counsel on everything from British English to Buckingham Palace protocol, and with gracious hospitality whenever I visited the UK. I will miss him more than I can say.

  Foreword

  Dorothy L. Sayers described her final novel, Busman’s Honeymoon, as a ‘love story with detective interruptions’. This book might also be described in those terms, but in this case the beloved is London, city of my dreams. My love affair with London goes back more years than I care to say, dating back to when my parents took me there as a gift upon my graduation from college. I fell in love on the spot and have never changed my mind. So if there’s rather a lot of travelogue interspersed with a bit of murder here and there, don’t say you haven’t been warned.

  ONE

  ‘And this is the celebrated Bloody Tower, where they say the Princes in the Tower were murdered by their wicked uncle, King Richard the Third.’

  I must have made a face or some sort of protesting noise, because the Beefeater turned to me with an amused expression. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘there’s a lady who doesn’t believe it. Been doing some reading, have you, madam?’

  ‘Daughter of Time,’ I murmured. ‘A very persuasive argument.’

  ‘So I’ve heard. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know the truth of it, will we? Now on your left—’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ asked one of my guests in a whisper.

  ‘Tell you later. We mustn’t be rude to our guide.’

  I was touring the Tower of London for the umpteenth time, shepherding two visiting Americans, house guests of my good friends the Andersons. Tom and Lynn had another obligation that day and had been grateful when I offered to play hostess and show them some of the obligatory sights of London.

  ‘My dear, you are a saint!’ Lynn had said. ‘You’ll be bored to tears. All those appalling tourist attractions!’

  ‘Not I. I’m besotted with English history and English royalty, as you very well know. Besides, when you’re tired of London—’

  ‘You’re tired of life. Thank you, Samuel Johnson.’

  It was quite true, though. Yes, London is dirty and noisy. Yes, it’s full of foreigners. You can hear virtually every language known to man as you walk its crowded streets or negotiate its old and inconvenient railway stations. But the great old grey city teems with life, and for those with eyes to see, and even a modicum of appreciation for history, there’s a new delight around every corner. There’s the pub where the aforementioned Johnson used to take his ale of an evening and propound, Boswell faithfully taking down every word (or inventing them, as I’ve often suspected). There’s the house where Charles Dickens once lived, and over there Robert Browning, and there Dorothy L. Sayers. In some neighbourhoods the blue memorial plaques decorate nearly every wall. In that hospital, inside those very walls, Florence Nightingale tried against formidable odds to elevate nursing to an honourable profession. Over there is the tiny museum devoted to the history of Judaism in England, and there the huge Museum of London. And when you’re tired of looking and walking, and your sense of awe is sated, you’re only a few steps away from a café where you can get lovely tea and cakes, or a pub where you can get an even lovelier pint.

  So even though, nowadays, the café might be operated by Starbucks, and the pub might have Budweiser on offer, I still adore London, and I truly love showing people around what I’ve come to think of as ‘my’ London.

  It isn’t, of course, possible to cover everything in a short time. Unlike the sailors in On the Town, who tried to see all of New York ‘in just one day’, when one day is all the time I’m given, I stick to the royal tour. Show me an American who isn’t fascinated by the House of Windsor, especially since William and Kate’s wedding, and I’ll show you an American who isn’t planning to visit England anyway.

  I should perhaps explain myself. My name is Dorothy Martin and I’m an American, born and raised in Indiana, who lived my whole life there until the death of my first husband. We had planned to move to England when he retired, having spent vacations in various parts of the country for
many years. When Frank died, I was too numb to do anything but follow already-laid plans to move to the small cathedral city of Sherebury, and that opened up a new life for me. I’ve lived in Sherebury ever since, and have been happily married for some years to Alan Nesbitt, a retired chief constable and an utter dear.

  My American friends visit us a good deal, as do friends of friends, so for first-time visitors I’ve worked out a route that covers in a day all the can’t-miss London high spots. On pleasant days, if my guests are young and fit, we do most of it on foot. From Victoria Station it’s an easy walk up Buckingham Palace Road to Birdcage Walk. (Birdcage Walk! I ask you. Who could fail to be enchanted by a street name like that?) That’s where the Guards live, as in ‘Changing of the’. If it’s a day for the ceremony, we stand there by the barracks fence and watch the Guards muster while the band plays. One gets a much better view of the pageantry there than at the palace gates, where the crowds are always about twenty deep.

  Then back to Buckingham Palace for the tour, if I’ve been able to get tickets. The tours run from late July through September, and are well worth the stiffish admission price. Even if you’ve seen lots of stately homes, this one is super special. It is, after all, still a family home for perhaps the most famous family in the world. I doubt that a visitor has ever glimpsed the Queen whisking out of sight at the end of a corridor, but one lives in hope!

  After the palace tour, and perhaps a break for tea or a pint, we walk back up Birdcage Walk, with St James’s Park on one side (if we’re lucky, we see a pelican or two) and find ourselves in Parliament Square, with its statue of, among others, Abraham Lincoln. That always amazes American visitors, and touches most of them deeply. Myself, I have to blink away tears. But that’s often a problem for me in this part of London. Here, just a few feet away, is Westminster Abbey, burial or memorial site for countless people whose lives have profoundly affected mine. One can’t move inside without stepping on the grave of someone breathtakingly famous. Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, the Brontës, Benjamin Britten, Winston Churchill. Chaucer, for Pete’s sake! There’s even a statue of Martin Luther King, Jr, right there on the west front of the Abbey.

  And just over there, looming ahead, golden in the sunshine, are the Houses of Parliament. Never mind that it’s a Victorian structure, a replacement for the old Palace of Westminster that was destroyed by fire. It still represents the foundation of my own democracy, the idea of government by elected representatives, and I get teary again whenever I see it.

  I guess I’m just sentimental. I cry at parades, too, and my throat tightens so much I can’t sing some patriotic songs.

  Having looked over the Abbey and gazed in awe at Big Ben, if we haven’t worn ourselves out touring the palace we then head for the culmination of the day, the Tower of London. It’s much too far to walk, so we have our choice of the Tube, a riverboat if a convenient one is leaving about then, or a cab. I leave the decision to my guests, who may or may not be adventurous. My own choice would always be a tour boat, because London seen from the river is quite different from London seen from the streets, and the Thames is after all the way royal prisoners were taken to the Tower . . .

  There I go again, caught up in history.

  The weather on this early September day was not very pleasant. Although no actual rain was falling, something between a heavy mist and a fine drizzle hung in the air. The English call it a mizzle, a word which, with its echoes of ‘miserable’, I find quite appropriate. We opted for a cab, to heck with the expense. My tourists were inclined to be grumpy about the dampness, but I pointed out brightly that the weather kept the crowds down, and we’d have a much better chance of seeing the Crown Jewels without waiting in a long queue. That cheered them up a bit. I think their feet were hurting them. I know mine were beginning to complain.

  However, Alice and Joe were troupers, and at their first sight of a Beefeater they forgot about the weather.

  ‘My gosh!’ said Alice in a stage whisper. ‘Do they dress like that all the time? I’ve seen pictures, but I thought it was just fancy dress for special occasions.’

  Our guide heard, and was amused. ‘Actually, madam, these are our everyday uniforms, known as “undress”. The dress uniform, the one you’ve seen on the gin bottle, with the gold bands and ruff and rosettes and all, is worn for those special occasions you mention, and is, incidentally, extremely uncomfortable.’

  The weather had done its work, and visitors to the Tower were few enough that our small party had a Beefeater all to ourselves. He explained that they are properly called Yeomen Warders – not to be confused with the Yeomen of the Guard, Gilbert and Sullivan to the contrary notwithstanding. ‘But everyone calls us Beefeaters; not to worry, madam.’

  We saw it all. The famed wing-clipped ravens, whose departure from the Tower would, according to legend, bring about the fall of the kingdom, were their usual raucous selves. Our guide wasn’t the Raven Master, but he had quite a stock of stories about the birds. ‘They have to be sacked sometimes, you know, if they get to be too rowdy. One liked to eat the television aerials, so he was booted out. And one developed a taste for beer and managed somehow to get out and take up residence at a neighbouring pub!’

  We all laughed at that, but when the guide began to get into the history of the Tower, we were quickly sobered. The Traitor’s Gate, through which several notable prisoners were brought to be tried and executed, looked suitably ominous on that grey day, and we were silent for a moment after the pitiful story of Anne Boleyn.

  ‘I’ve heard she was very beautiful,’ said Joe after the pause. ‘How old was she?’

  ‘No one knows for certain when she was born,’ said the Beefeater, ‘but she may have been as young as twenty-nine.’

  ‘And never knew her daughter would become the most powerful monarch England would ever have,’ said Alice sadly.

  ‘Don’t you suppose she knows now?’ I asked softly, and our guide smiled at me.

  My guests were suitably awed by the Crown Jewels, although I must admit I found the old display (which you can glimpse in the movie Gaslight), more imposing than the present one. I suppose the new one is more secure, and sadly, security must be a primary concern these days.

  We were all tired and footsore by the time we finished the tour. Fortunately I know a very pleasant pub nearby, and when we were seated over our pints and sandwiches in the Minories, Alice brought up the brief exchange about the Princes in the Tower.

  ‘Oh, dear, it’s one of my hobby horses, I’m afraid. For years history books said that Richard the Third killed his two little nephews, but some historians took a different view. Then an author named Josephine Tey wrote a book called The Daughter of Time, which set out, in a fictional framework, the alternative explanation that Henry the Seventh was responsible for the boys’ death.’

  I went into a little of the history, but I was losing my audience. ‘Right, then,’ I said, setting down my empty glass. ‘Let’s get you two tired people home. There’s no end to the history one can unearth in London, but now isn’t the time to do it.’

  ‘Well,’ said Alice apologetically, ‘maybe we have had enough bloodshed for one day. History does seem to be just one long succession of murders, doesn’t it?’

  I laughed at that. ‘I suppose the long years and decades when all was going well and nothing much happened don’t get recorded by the historians. Not interesting enough!’

  I was to remember that remark, and ponder about that word interesting. In the sense of the old Chinese curse, perhaps?

  TWO

  That rainy September day presaged a wet autumn and a dreary winter with little snow, but a great deal of rain and sleet and mist and general unpleasantness. Spring was just beginning to make some welcome overtures in late February, when the letter arrived.

  The outer envelope enclosed another, a large one in cream-coloured stock so thick it was nearly card stock, with, on the back flap, the letters ER embossed in gold.

  ‘What on earth .
. .?’ I held it out for Alan’s inspection.

  ‘Well, my dear, there’s one way to find out, isn’t there?’ He pulled out a folded note and then the contents of the imposing envelope, and then, eyebrows raised, handed it all to me.

  ‘. . . invite you to attend . . . George Cross . . . twenty-third of May . . .’ I read it once, and then again, and then glanced at the handwritten note on the bottom. I frowned in puzzlement. ‘Alan, what is this all about?’

  ‘It’s about an honour, Dorothy. A whacking great honour. You remember last summer, when Jonathan jolly nearly bought it, rescuing that little girl?’

  ‘Of course I remember!’ I shuddered. Jonathan Quinn, a Scotland Yard inspector and a good friend of Alan’s, had been investigating a house suspected of harbouring terrorists, when shooting and a fire had broken out. In the middle of the worst of it, Jonathan had seen a small face at an upstairs window. At great risk to his own life, he had broken into the house and rescued the child, who was in the end unhurt, at least physically. Jonathan had been shot at and badly wounded, so badly that there was grave question about his survival.

  The story had touched the hearts of millions, not only in the UK but all over the world, and when it became apparent that Jonathan was permanently unfit for further duty as a policeman, gifts and offers of employment had poured in. Jonathan had refused the gifts, with a good deal of embarrassment, or so I understood from what Alan told me. He was still trying to decide about employment, his pension from a grateful nation being quite insufficient to support himself.

  ‘You met Jonathan when you were doing that stint at Bramshill, didn’t you?’ Very early in our marriage, Alan had served as temporary commandant at what was then called the Police Staff College at Bramshill, a very lovely Jacobean manor house in Hampshire.

  ‘Yes, and you first met him there, too. He was very keen on his job, and already making a name for himself with the Met. It’s a great pity.’