Rumours of War: Jane Dowling Mysteries, #7

By Jo Currington

Portsmouth, 1905

Private detective Jane Dowling is invited down to Southsea to look into the death of Commander Granger, one of three men who are questioning the Royal Navy's strategy for building ever bigger battleships, at the start of the dreadnought arms race with Germany. The dockyard at Portsmouth is the biggest industrial complex in the world at the time, capable of building one battleship a year, yet it relies on workers who live in conditions as poor as any London slum. The war to come will be long, bloody and frustrating and will ultimately be decided as much by revolution and mutiny, as it will be by sheer force of arms.

Working with the local police Jane discovers a group of anarchists are planning an attack on the dockyard, but gets caught up in the politics of the town, and becomes too close to the enigmatic Inspector Ezekiel who has problems of his own. When there is a second death, Inspector Downes, an inspector Jane has worked with before comes down from Scotland Yard, because the Metropolitan Police are responsible for policing the dockyard.

A Swiss foreign agent, Emelia Hawkes, is eager to understand the secrets of Commander Granger's strategy, and she engages a number of the anarchists who have fled London to disrupt progress. All the time the head of the dockyard, Admiral Phoenix has been quietly examining Granger's ideas and building a facility to study sea battles in the way he suggested. None of this solves the initial problem for the Granger sisters, as to who killed their father and why.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jo Currington
• Release date: Oct 9, 2025
• ISBN: 9798232302740

Book preview

Rumours of War

Jane Dowling Mysteries, Volume 7

Jo Currington

Published by Jo Currington, 2025.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

RUMOURS OF WAR

First edition. October 9, 2025.

Copyright © 2025 Jo Currington.

ISBN: 979-8232302740

Written by Jo Currington.

Rumours of War

A Jane Dowling Mystery

Jo Currington

Chapter One

Portsmouth,

Summer 1906

Jane arrived at Portsmouth Harbour station in the early afternoon, and she looked out from the platform over the harbour waters, and towards the entrance. Wet, blustery winds blew off the Solent, obscuring the view of the ships at anchor at Spithead. She turned her back to the wind and carried her bag around to the inn near the harbour entrance where she was staying. The Granger sisters had recommended it when she said she wanted to stay in the old town, rather than near them.

The landlady showed her to a small room, overlooking the water.

You wait, love. When a big ship goes by, you’ll feel you can reach out and touch it. When it’s a Navy ship, the sailors line up on deck, so their families can see them.

Right.

So, don’t open the curtains in your undies. She laughed clumsily at her own joke.

What about the ships out there, Jane pointed towards Spithead, what do they do?

Me sons in the Navy, he’s off West Africa somewhere on the blockade. Mostly it’s waiting, he says, bouncing up and down. Here it is cold and wet, there it is hot and wet. There’s ferries to the isle, if you want to see it. You can get all around on the buses. It’s grand down in the south, really tropical. Coloured cliffs. So beautiful.

Thank you.

Jane had learnt not to say too much about what she did, in such circumstances. She paid for a week, and said she would make her own arrangements for meals, apart from breakfast.

Left alone in the room, she became restless almost immediately.

The last couple of years had involved considerable travel, and she was starting to react badly the first time she was alone in a new hotel room. There was something heartless about the worn carpets, the sagging beds, the unnecessary mirrors.

Recognising the signs she left the room at once, and walked back into town at as fast a pace as she could manage. The streets were busy with workmen going home, many on bicycles.

She soon reached the dockyard gates, and the start of the high surrounding wall. The dockyard was one of the reasons the city was so crowded, but of course it provided work and purpose for the city. The masts and upper infrastructure of a few old ships were visible over the wall.

Jane kept walking. She wanted to see where Commander Granger had been found stabbed, before it was time to walk east across town to Southsea and to meet his daughters.

In truth, she had jumped at the case to get out of London and out of the office. The last few months had been exhausting. They now had six agents, so she was involved in directing them, overseeing the business side and a host of things she did not imagine having to do, while doing so much less direct work herself.

The London police were also finally showing signs of getting their act together. They had a proper fingerprint department, police photographers, and even some police surgeons who were prepared to learn from their continental colleagues. It was slow going, but it was moving forward. It meant that there was a growing scientific aspect to detective work which she needed to keep up with, as clients expected it. That and the advances in photography. Everyone expected photographs.

And Portsmouth mattered. The whole country had been battered by the mess that was the South African war and now after a long sleep, Britain was finally having to face the uncomfortable fact that it had serious competition in Europe and in America. The papers, as usual, were working their readers up into a patriotic frenzy, with no care for the consequences. They turned this panic into a cry for a bigger Navy. On the train down she had read about the new docks being built at Portsmouth for the enormous new battleships the country needed, the dreadnoughts.

Half a mile past the main dockyard gate, she found herself in Union Street, a cramped, dirty street of two story shops and houses, all worn out. It looked, felt and smelt like a street in Whitechapel or Wapping. Commander Granger had been found with knife wounds in an alley at the end of Mitre Alley. He had died at the scene. His daughters’ letter said he owned a row of houses in Union Street and had been collecting rent when he was attacked, out of the blue.

It was hard to say quite what distinguished a Portsmouth slum from a London one, but there was something. Because the men were at work in the dockyard, or away on the ships, there were less hanging about, and a lot more women, many with babies and children. Most of the children had boots, and looked tolerably well fed. Fresh air should have been coming off the Solent, but the air was still thick with coal smoke, rotting food, human waste and sweat. The animal smell of confined humanity.

The buildings themselves were dilapidated. In many places, Jane could see holes in the walls and roofs, broken or missing window panes, rotten doors and windows.

She did not stop in the alley for long, not wishing to attract attention. There was a public house down the street and she stopped briefly in this place, long enough to realise the ratio of women to men inside was the reverse of that on the street.

On the way along Union Street she spotted a couple of doors with a gaggle of young women gossiping outside. She assumed these were brothels. Sailors were the same everywhere. She caught a few of the womens’ comments as she passed, more sing-song cockney than the slower Hampshire accent she had heard on the train.

The city was a famous anomaly, an urban oasis in a rural county. She had passed through miles of fresh countryside on the train. Somehow although the railways connected the cities conveniently enough, they did not quite explain them. Maybe all that mattered to a city's pattern of development originally was how far men could walk to work. And here there were already plenty of bicycles navigating the tram lines in the main streets.

Jane started walking south and east, leaving the crowded streets around the dockyard. As she walked she came through wider streets with municipal buildings and better homes. The air grew much fresher as she got closer to the sea.

Eventually she reached the blocks of grand apartments which lined the extended Southsea seafront. She found the daughter’s address. They lived on the second floor, so Jane walked up the palatial staircase and rang the bell. A few minutes later a maid opened the door.

Jane Dowling, she announced herself. Here to see Miss Winter Granger.

The three sisters, waiting for her in the sitting room, were all dressed in mourning black. They regarded Jane with some suspicion at first. The sister who had written to her, Winter, introduced the other two, Spring and Summer. Spring, who had made considerably more effort with her dress, was the youngest, slimmest and most glamorous, she did not say much and spent most of the time by the window looking out.

Winter was the most intense. She explained the situation in rapid stabs of concentrated language, laced with her own theories and assumptions. Summer held back, calmly waiting for her sister to exhaust herself, or at least draw breath.

The gist of what Winter was saying was that their father had collected rents every week in person for fifteen years, and was a generous and flexible landlord who was widely respected and well known in the area of Union Street. The few witnesses to the actual attack say it must have been a stranger, a man no one knew. Certainly no money was taken. Many had seen their father fall down in the alley and come to his aid.

At first the passersby had suspected a heart attack, no one saw the knife wound and the blood until later. In fact there had not been much blood as their father’s heart had stopped immediately. Someone had bumped into their father, who a few feet later, had stumbled and fallen. This was why the attacker had got away so easily.

Let’s take a step back. Jane asked. Can you tell me more about your father? She was trying to keep up with her notes.

Summer touched Winter’s arm and took over.

Our father retired from the Navy at the rank of Commander, because he inherited some money and the houses in Union Street from his father, and because our mother was very ill. She died when we were young. Since then he has written many articles and even a book about the Navy of the future. The book was about to be published. She lowered her voice. We think what he was working on has something to do with what happened.

Why do you say that?

Summer looked down at her folded hands. She glanced at Winter.

Miss Dowling, you must hear all sorts of mad theories from relatives, in their grief. I know he was not always the best behaved man, and he had his frustrations.

There was a snort from Spring at the window.

And his death has affected us all deeply, but in different ways. Summer looked up as Spring left the room at this point.

You may as well tell me what you think. Jane replied.

He worked hard at his theories. By the window is a map of the sea around England. You can see it is divided into twenty mile squares. We would put the map flat on the table and play a game with him to work out what would happen in different scenarios if two fleets were to meet. He thought that was the way to test different ideas.

What were your father’s theories?

I can give you the finished manuscript of his book, but in short, he thought the Navy was making the same mistake over and over again of relying on bigger and bigger battleships. They were vulnerable to torpedoes, mines, submarines, even torpedoes dropped from the air. I know it sounds fantastical, but you have to project forward what is possible now, for ten or twenty years, and see what kind of weight of bombs an airship could carry, for example. Or an airplane. He kept up with everything. You see bigger ships are bigger targets, and they either have heavy armour and are slow, or they are lighter and faster, but more vulnerable.

Jane looked at her, her surprise showing.

I’m sorry. It is just that we talked with our father about these things all the time. He was very excited by the reports of the recent naval war between Japan and Russia, the first clash of modern fleets. The Japanese fleet was modern, in any case.

The Navy did not like your father’s theories?

They are just a machine, the Navy high command. Winter put in, angrily. They have only one way of thinking and they can only do one thing at a time. They drag the whole town along with them.

He was not alone in thinking this, either. Summer went to her father’s desk and found a brown paper file. She showed it to Jane.

This is the file of his recent correspondence on his ideas.

The Navy are not going to admit they got rid of a trouble maker. Winter added.

Do you think the book will be published now?

The publisher has written to us about it. They are worried it will go out of date rapidly. It is just cowardice really.

I am sure many people would be interested. Jane replied. The country is in such a blindly patriotic mood, no one else is preaching caution.

The sisters looked at each other.

Of course, finding out what happened to your father is more important right now.

Do you think this is an extreme reaction of ours, in our distress? To see things which are not there.

I can try and set your mind at rest on the matter, if nothing else.

Spring came back into the room. Her eyes were red from crying.

What has been decided? She demanded to know.

Miss Dowling will look into the circumstances of father’s death and the men he was in contact with.

To what end? Won’t that just drag out this terrible torment?

Summer put her arm around her sister and held her to her.

You can decide what you want to do with any information I find out. If you don’t mind my asking, you said your father was not perfect, what did you mean?

Really, Summer, must you do this?

I will probably find out, in any event. Was there another woman?

Good God, Summer. Stop this now, I beg you.

Spring, dear. You must be brave. These are the same questions everyone else will ask. We just want to find out the answers for ourselves before they do.

It is too awful.

Leave it to us, then, dear. Summer said. Spring nodded and left the room again.

You see. Winter added. Father’s death has ruined a lot of her plans.

Plans for what?

Snagging a suitable husband, for one. People have little to do but gossip around here. There must be no skeletons in the family closet.

What were you going to say about your father?

He was a sailor for twenty years, before he stopped. From then on, he was confined to this apartment looking out over the sea, reading about what others were doing. He felt it very terribly.

Jane nodded.

So sometimes he would go into town in search of his old ship-mates, cheap rum and those terrible Navy Cut cigarettes. And worse, in all probability. I would hear stories from the missions, from the priest at St Agathas.

Winter, don’t say that.

It’s true, some rent days he would not come back until very late, and he would not speak to anyone, just go to his room.

But the attack happened during the day?

Yes, I am just saying, he would be well known in the pubs along Union Street, for example. And some of the other establishments along there. It reminded him of his time as a sailor, being among other men. This is a very female establishment. And the females in Southsea are very different from the females of Union Street. There they are a law unto themselves, often their men are away. Mostly it was those women he would collect the rent from.

Alright, I understand. Jane said.

What is your plan of action?

I will go and see the police inspector charged with the case, see what progress he has made. Then I will start my own enquiries. If I am too busy to report back here, I will send a note every day or two. I am at the inn you recommended. Please write to me there if anything new comes up.

Of course.

When does the rent need to be collected again?

Tomorrow, I think.

Let us do that together, maybe we will learn something. I will meet you in Union Street at ten.

Summer nodded.

Chapter Two

Jane went to the police station, and inquired at the desk who was investigating Commander Granger’s death. She offered her card, which the desk sergeant read with practiced scepticism.

When it was clear she was not going away, a message was sent to the detective’s office and a Detective Sergeant appeared. She was taken to an interview room.

Here she waited. To pass the time she took her notebook out from her satchell and started making notes on her conversation with the three daughters. Eventually the door opened and she looked up.

Detective Inspector Ezekiel, the man said. He was of slight build, barely of regulation height, dark haired and bright eyed, young for a London inspector.

The sergeant said you were a female private detective down from London and I wanted to meet you.

This is a pleasant surprise, I was expecting at least thirty more minutes of delay and discouragement.

The sergeant came into the room behind Ezekiel. He was a more solid, unfriendly proposition.

Commanded Granger’s daughters have hired me to look into his death. I wondered how you were getting on with the investigation.

Why did they hire you?

They are concerned you may dismiss it as a random attack in the street.

But it was a random attack in the street.

You have examined the body?

Of course.

And how was he killed exactly?

A knife to the heart.

Were there matching cuts in his clothing?

His shirt, yes.

Not his jacket or waistcoat?

Ezekiel stopped and tilted his head to one side to look at her more closely. There was something bird-like in the way he revealed his curiosity, though whether a crow or a hawk it was hard to say.

What other explanation can there be?

Was anything taken from the body?

It was busy in the alley at the time. The man collapsed. At first they thought he was drunk, which was not unusual for our Commander. Apparently, he liked a drink after he had collected his rent.

Hardly a sensible location for a street robbery, then. If it was busy. It was still early, I understood, too early for him to be incapable through drink.

Ezekiel stopped again, and glanced at his sergeant who was smirking.

My information was that someone bumped into him, placed a knife under his outer clothing and pushed it up, under his ribs into his heart. All before he could react. Which sounds to me a lot like someone who knew what they were doing.

"Or they got lucky or they were a sailor, who are known for being quick with their