by Emily Organ
His grip tightened again, and then he pushed me to the ground.
“I thought you were planning to let me go!” I cried.
“I lied,” came the cold reply.
He pushed me back into the snow and held the knife blade to my neck once again.
It was then that I saw his face. He was clean-shaven, though I felt sure that I recalled him having whiskers. Black whiskers. His eyes were familiar.
It was John Blackstone, the reporter from The Times.
“Mr Blackstone?” I ventured. “Is it really you? But why?”
“Quiet!” he snarled.
I had no idea what he intended to do with me, but I was determined not to allow him to get away with anything further.
If I tried to fight back James would surely arrive quickly to help me… Wouldn’t he?
“You don’t need to hurt me,” I pleaded. “Let me go now and I’ll run away as fast as I can. You can get away too.”
He shook his head. “If I let you go you’ll never leave me alone. You and your friend Inspector Blakely will continue to pursue me. You’ll come to this cemetery again and disturb my mother—”
“I promise we won’t!”
“Quiet!”
He pushed the knife against my neck again. I felt sure that he was about to cut my throat, just as he had done with Anna.
Protruding from between the fingers of my right fist was the hatpin I had removed as I adjusted my hat a few moments before.
The time had come.
I gave a cry and launched my fist into his face as hard as I could. I screwed my eyes shut, not wishing to see the extent of the damage my hatpin had caused.
He recoiled with a blood-curdling scream, and I was up on my feet before I even had time to think about moving.
All I saw was white.
Slipping and sliding, I hurled myself forward into the snow, panting and crying and calling out for James.
Within a few seconds his arms had found me. “Penny!”
“Get him!” I shrieked. “Grab him before he gets away!”
Chapter 55
“So The Times has reported on the arrest of Mr Blackstone,” said Edgar, as we sat in the newsroom, “but hasn’t gone so far as to admit that he was one of its news reporters!”
“The editor is clearly too embarrassed by the whole affair,” said Mr Sherman.
“I’m still struggling to believe that it was him,” continued Edgar. “He always struck me as a dour, dull man. Rather quiet, too. I gather John Blackstone wasn’t his real name.”
“His name was Augustus John Smith,” I said. “He chose to use a different name professionally after standing trial for a violent assault seven years ago.”
“Quite sensible, I suppose,” replied Edgar. “A news reporter should try to keep his reputation as untarnished as possible.”
“I never considered that it could have been him,” I said. “When he feigned drunkenness in the dining room he had us all fooled. Everyone assumed he was too inebriated to have carried out murder, so he was ruled out of the inquiries almost immediately.”
“And by retiring early that night he gave himself plenty of time to prepare for the attack,” added James.
Edgar shook his head. “I still cannot fully believe it. He always seemed so respectable.”
“There are many seemingly respectable murderers,” said James. “He was a clever man.”
“A clever man and a lunatic,” said Edgar. “Can lunatics truly be clever, though? I don’t think they can, can they?”
“He wasn’t a lunatic,” said Frederick. “He was driven by love.”
“He was driven by a conceited form of passion,” I said. “And envy and revenge. It certainly wasn’t real love.”
“You thought it was all to do with stolen art, didn’t you, Inspector?” asked Edgar.
“We felt that was a strong possibility,” replied James. “That’s why it took us some time to realise that Mrs O’Riley was the intended victim, not Mr Gallo. It was an error to assume that the attack had been directed at the hotelier.”
“He was perceived to be the important person in this situation, while she was dismissed as little more than a loose woman,” I said.
“I shan’t be making that mistake again,” said James.
“It wasn’t only you,” I said. “Chief Inspector Fenton and his men took the same approach.”
“It was a natural mistake to make, Inspector,” said Edgar.
“It is a stark reminder that all victims must be considered in a fair and equal manner,” replied James.
“Has Blackstone confessed to the murders?” asked Mr Sherman.
“Yes he has,” replied James. “With some rather twisted explanation that he was forced to do it. He seems to think that once the jury hear his explanation during his trial then they will spare him the gallows.”
Mr Sherman gave a snort. “Quite unlikely.”
“So what did he have to do with the stolen artworks?” asked Edgar.
“Nothing,” I replied. “Anna O’Riley had been tasked by a private detective to find out who was supplying forged paintings to Mr Gallo. The private detective had been hired by the gentleman criminal Jack Shelby although there’s no evidence that Anna knew this, she was just doing the job which she’d been asked to do. She had been visiting Gallo once a week and this caught the attention of Augustus Smith, or John Blackstone if you prefer. The obsessive affection he’d felt for her in their youth was re-kindled when he encountered her at Le Croquembouche restaurant a few months ago. When she refused him, he planned his revenge.”
“And Mr Gallo got caught up in it,” said Edgar.
“Unfortunately his fate was sealed once Mr Blackstone had persuaded Mrs Mirabeau to hold a dinner to promote the hotel’s opening to news reporters,” said James. “Although it was a clever ruse of Blackstone’s, the man was ruthless and cruel. He subjected his innocent victims to a horrendous attack.”
“And poor Miss Green was almost his next victim,” added Mr Sherman.
“That was an extremely regrettable incident,” said James, giving me an apologetic glance.
“No, it was quite necessary,” I replied. “Neither of us could have known that he would follow us there, and the outcome was fortunate given that it resulted in his arrest.”
“And the loss of his eye,” said Edgar with a sharp wince. “Have you ever considered carrying hatpins around with you instead of a revolver, Inspector?”
Dirty snow had been shovelled into piles in Fleet Street, and the sun momentarily emerged from behind the clouds.
James checked his pocket watch. “The Holborn Restaurant is still serving its luncheon menu,” he said. “Shall we… Oh, I don’t suppose we can, can we? We’d need your sister here to chaperone us.”
“She needn’t find out,” I replied with a warm smile.
“But it wouldn’t be appropriate.”
“It would be if we were discussing our work.”
“Oh, I see. So we’re working now, are we?”
“Yes. We’re certainly not courting.”
“We’re just secretly courting, you mean.”
“No, we’re just working.”
James’ face fell. “Really?” He gave a sigh. “This all feels rather complicated at times.”
“It does, but it doesn’t have to remain complicated. There is a simpler way.” I grinned.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, James!” I laughed. “Under which other circumstances might a gentleman and lady enjoy each other’s company without a chaperone? Let’s see if you can work it out before we reach the restaurant.”
I walked on ahead, stepping around a heap of grey snow.
“Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?” he called after me.
“I’m asking you to work it out,” I replied over my shoulder. “And to tell me when you have an answer!”
The End
Historical Note
A browse through newspapers fr
om the late nineteenth century reveals that breach of promise cases were fairly common. Although usually brought about by aggrieved women, it wasn’t unknown for them to be initiated by a man as was the case with fifty year old William Lister in 1867 who brought a case against the wealthy seventy year old, Patience Wray. One of the most famous breach of promise cases in the 1880s concerned the well-known actress Emily Mary Finney - stage name of May Fortescue - versus Lord Garmoyle or Arthur William Cairns, 2nd Earl Cairns. He appears to have cared a great deal for her but his aristocratic friends strongly disapproved of the union to a lowly actress and so he ended the engagement.
At the court hearing in 1884, Lord Garmoyle’s counsel offered £10,000 (about $1.6m/£1.2m today) and the jury agreed to this amount. At the time it was the largest amount of damages ever recorded in a breach of promise case in the United Kingdom. May Fortescue used the payout to form her own theatre company and successfully toured Britain and America performing the plays of her friend, William S Gilbert - one half of the librettist duo Gilbert and Sullivan.
The character of Jack Shelby was inspired by the fascinating story of how Adam Worth was pursued by the Pinkertons and Scotland Yard. It’s only briefly summarised here.
Pinkerton’s detective agency was founded by a Scotsman, Allan Pinkerton, in 1850s Chicago. The agency expanded rapidly at a time when law enforcement and security in America was ad hoc and uncoordinated. From its inception the agency employed women detectives as well as men and involved itself in activities including the Civil War, chasing down outlaws and providing security for railroad companies and industrial disputes.
In 1873 William Pinkerton, son of Allan, worked with Inspector John Shore of Scotland Yard to convict an American gang who defrauded the Bank of England of around $13m/£10m in today’s money. The two also worked together for decades on chasing down Adam Worth, the international ‘Napoleon of Crime’.
Worth was a German-born American master criminal who stole around $100m/£77m (in today’s money) in a thirty-five year career from banks and businesses across America and Europe ‘without once resorting to bloodshed or physical violence’ (The Pinkertons by James D Horan). Worth was clever, conniving and used a number of different aliases. He spent only six and a half years in jail and spent quite a lot of time in London. Worth had a lot of respect for his adversary William Pinkerton, but cared little for the Scotland Yard detective, Inspector Shore. One evening in 1876 the three of them met in London’s Criterion Bar. Adam Worth later said of that evening:-
“I told Shore he didn’t know anybody but a lot of three-card monte men and cheap pickpockets, and he could thank God Almighty the Pinkertons were his friends or he would never have gotten above the ordinary street pickpocket detective.” (From The Pinkertons by James D Horan).
Twenty five years later, in 1901, Worth gave up his life of travel and crime and negotiated with William Pinkerton to return a famous painting, the Duchess of Devonshire, which he had stolen from a London gallery in 1876. He negotiated to sell it back to the gallery for $25,000 meaning that he did quite well out of his theft! During this time the detective and the criminal developed an unlikely friendship. Adam Worth died in London in 1903 and William Pinkerton looked out for his family - so much so that Worth’s son, Henry, actually went on to become a Pinkerton detective.
Eliza’s employer, Susan Barrington, is loosely based on the social reformer Octavia Hill. Her most well-known legacy in England is as a co-founder of the National Trust - an organisation which preserves historical buildings and sites. In the 1860s Octavia Hill was recruited by the social thinker and aesthete, John Ruskin, to manage housing in Marylebone for people on low incomes. Her work expanded and by the 1880s it was reported that she was managing homes in London for between three and four thousand low income tenants. Hill employed only women to collect the rent from these tenants and their role was to know the tenants personally and encourage their wellbeing by managing and promoting local associations, clubs and societies - many of them for children.
The ‘Septem contra Edinam’ or the Seven against Edinburgh University - admired by Anna O’Riley - were seven women who fought for the right to study medicine at Edinburgh University. They were: Sophia Jex-Blake, Isabel Thorne, Edith Pechey, Matilda Chaplin, Helen Evans, Mary Anderson Marshall and Emily Bovell. In 1869 the women passed the matriculation exam and were admitted to the university’s medical school, however hostility was rife with university staff refusing to teach them followed by the Surgeon's Hall Riot in 1870 when the women were pelted with rubbish by a mob of two hundred people as they tried to attend an anatomy exam.
The women were blocked from graduating and most continued their studies in mainland Europe while Jex-Blake helped found the London School of Medicine for Women. At the time of writing, it has just been announced that Edinburgh University intends to posthumously award the seven women with their undergraduate degrees in medicine at a ceremony in July 2019.
I use the spelling cypher in this book because it was more widely used in 1880s Britain than cipher. For now, though, I’ll revert to the modern day spelling of cipher. The Vigenère cipher was invented by the Italian cryptographer Giovan Battista Bellaso in 1553. It was later misattributed to the French cryptographer Blaise de Vigenère who came up with a variation later in the sixteenth century. The code was considered unbreakable, earning it the name le chiffre indéchiffrable and was used by the Confederacy in the Civil War. The Union regularly deciphered the messages because the Confederates relied on just a few keywords.
A German army officer and cryptographer, Friedrich Kasiski, published a method for deciphering the Vigenère cipher in 1863 although it’s thought that the British mathematician and engineer, Charles Babbage, found his own method of decoding it in the 1840s.
Francis Edwards was able to send a telegram to Penny thanks to the work of the Central & South American Telegraph Company. The cable was laid in 1881 and 1882 from Mexico to Peru. With Mexico already connected to Texas by telegraph cable by this time, and the cables between America and Britain having been laid in the 1860s, swift communication between Buenaventura in Colombia and London was possible by 1884. Although it was probably quite expensive!
The Royal Aquarium was a Westminster entertainment venue built in 1876. The aquarium itself never took off - the water tanks ran into problems and it was a standing joke that the aquarium never contained any fish. In a bid to attract visitors the aquarium put on dangerous acts such as Zazel the human cannonball (a fourteen year old girl) and the tightrope walker, The Great Farini.
One of the stars of Beckwith’s Great Swimming Entertainment was Agnes Beckwith - ‘The Greatest Lady Swimmer in the World’ - at the age of fourteen in 1875, she swam five miles in the Thames from London Bridge to Greenwich. Her swimming feats were numerous, including a twenty mile swim in the Thames when she was seventeen in 1878. Thanks to London’s new sewerage system in the 1860s, the Thames was no longer an open sewer by Agnes’ time, but it still can’t have been very nice to swim in!
After a while the Royal Aquarium developed a seedy reputation and ladies of ‘elastic virtue’ were said to frequent the place. It closed in 1902, its theatre - managed by the actress Lillie Langtry - lasted until 1907. The buildings have since been demolished.
A magistrate’s court was established on Bow Street, Covent Garden, in 1740 in what was then a crime-ridden area. It became home to London’s first police force, the Bow Street Runners in 1749. In the 1830s the new Metropolitan Police Service built a station on the site and a new magistrate’s court opened in 1881. Famous and varied defendants here included Oscar Wilde, the Kray Twins, Dr Crippen, Bertand Russell, General Pinochet and Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst. The court closed in 2006 and the building still stands opposite Covent Garden’s Royal Opera House. At the time of writing, the building is reportedly being redeveloped into a hotel and police museum by a Qatari investment firm.
West Norwood Cemetery in South London is one of London's ‘Magnificent Seven
’ cemeteries which the Victorians built in the 1830s - 1840s when many of the church burial grounds were filled to capacity. There was a brief Victorian fashion for being laid to rest in catacombs: gothic, crypt-like structures where the coffins rest on shelves. The coffins had to be lead-lined to prevent any leaking of ‘contaminants’. There are catacombs in a number of large Victorian cemeteries and many of them offer guided tours of their catacombs these days - including West Norwood.
The Twinings tea shop on The Strand has been in its current location for over three hundred years. Thomas Twining was a tea merchant who began serving tea in his coffee shop at the beginning of the 18th century. Twinings tea is a brand which is still going strong today and has held a Royal Warrant since the company began supplying Queen Victoria with tea in 1837 - it has supplied every monarch since. Jane Austen apparently wrote in her diary that her mother sent her to London to buy Twinings tea. Twinings is London’s longest standing ratepayer with the company having occupied the same site on The Strand since 1706. The shop is worth a visit for tea tasting at the Loose Tea Bar and spending (too much) on tea gifts.
West India Docks is on the Isle of Dogs in London’s former docklands. The dock is still there and is now a backdrop for the Canary Wharf business district. In the latter part of the twentieth century, much of London’s docklands were redeveloped into offices and expensive apartments. Some older buildings and features of the area’s past remain on the Isle of Dogs so it’s an interesting place to visit and spot them.
If An Unwelcome Guest is the first Penny Green book you’ve read, then you may find the following historical background interesting. It’s compiled from the historical notes published in the previous books in the series:
Women journalists in the nineteenth century were not as scarce as people may think. In fact they were numerous enough by 1898 for Arnold Bennett to write Journalism for Women: A Practical Guide in which he was keen to raise the standard of women’s journalism:-