Free The Testimony of the Hanged Man (Lizzie Martin 5) by Granger Ann Page B

warned. ‘The police may yet take it up and then we must not interfere.’
    ‘Wouldn’t do us no harm to go out to Putney and take a look round,’ said Bessie.
    ‘That’s true, but it will be unofficial and we must be very, very careful.’ I explained that I wanted her to seek out Wally Slater, the cabman, and commandeer his four-wheeled growler for the next day, explaining it was to go to Putney (and to enquire the cost). I fully intended to pay Wally a fair price for the journey there and back. However, when Ben found out I really was going to make the trip, the first – or almost the first – thing he would ask would be how much it would cost, so I had to have the answer ready. To travel there by train or omnibus, and walk around the area when we got there, would slow inquiries considerably.
    ‘I’ll find him,’ promised Bessie. ‘He’s usually waiting up at the station in the cab rank there. I’ll wait there and if he don’t turn up, I’ll tell the other cabbies I want to talk to him. The message will get round quick enough. Of course, I won’t tell the other cabbies what I want him for.’
    ‘Today,’ I said, ‘I will go to Somerset House, and see if I can at least find out the identity of the old gentleman who died on that date in eighteen fifty-two at the house with the running fox weathervane.’
    Unfortunately, my own investigations did not begin very well. I soon arrived at the imposing pillars of Somerset House where records of births, deaths and marriages were kept. When I stepped inside, I stood bewildered. Here some of the greatest in the land had once lived, but now the whole great palace resembled nothing so much as a busy beehive, filled with scribbling clerks serving a dozen government departments.
    As I stood staring, a friendly uniformed porter approached me. ‘Morning, ma’am! What would you be looking for?’
    Grateful for his help, I explained I hoped to track down a death certificate. He appeared to find this the most natural thing in the world. He then directed me down a corridor and up a stone staircase, where I found myself in another corridor, eventually entering a room where I found a desk presided over by a clerk.
    This official was a pallid, podgy young man in a tightly buttoned blue coat. His hair was artfully curled, I guessed with the aid of tongs, and held in glistening immobility by a lavish application of Macassar oil. His whole demeanour was that of one who feels he should be engaged on better things than answering the public’s questions. I began to fear things would not go on as well as they’d started. I was right.
    I explained politely I was inquiring about a death at Putney in 1852, on the fifteenth of June, to be exact. Decedent was male.
    ‘So is half the population,’ he returned, heaving a deep sigh. ‘Name?’
    ‘I don’t know his name.’
    He stood and leaned across the desk to bring his plump cheeks and shining curls unpleasantly close to me. ‘Then how, madam, is anyone to look him up?’ His breath smelled of violet cachous.
    ‘In the volume containing records or references for that year.’
    He let out a squawk and then a shout of laughter that caused other people in the room – busy looking things up – to look at us instead. Ripples of disapproval flowed over us.
    ‘The total of deaths in this nation during a whole year fill more than a single volume! There is a row of them. You must know the name. Then I will show you the appropriate volume – names beginning with that letter – and you may search through it.’
    ‘But it’s his name I want to find out!’ I protested.
    ‘Why?’ he asked suddenly.
    ‘It is of interest to me.’
    He pursed his lips, which made him look like a mature cherub. ‘You can’t be a relation or you’d know his name.’ He looked even more pleased with himself at having made this deduction.
    ‘I am not, to my knowledge, related to the gentleman.’
    His scornful look turned to one of suspicion. ‘Not a