by Amy Myers
‘I want to talk to Mr Wasp alone, mama,’ she pleaded. Clara pulled a face at me as if to say ‘you go gently on her’ and then reluctantly closed the door behind her.
Hetty sniffed, sat down, stopped crying and clasped her hands in her lap looking like Ned does when he’s something to confess.
‘You do like Mr Phineas Snook, don’t you, Mr Wasp?’
‘Very much, Hetty. He’s a good man.’
‘So is William.’ A pause. ‘You don’t believe Phineas could have killed Mr Harcourt, do you? All because of me?’
‘No, Hetty.’
‘I’m glad because he was very upset when I told him Mr Harcourt was taking me to Cremorne Gardens. I didn’t mean to go. I only said it to make Phineas jealous. That wasn’t kind of me, was it?’
She looked at me so appealingly that I had to put her mind at rest. ‘No, but we all say things we shouldn’t sometimes when we’re in love.’
I couldn’t fully remember how that felt, but it seemed to be right.
‘Am I in love?’ She frowned. ‘I’m not sure I am. I like Phineas very much, but I like William too, so how do you know when you’re in love?’
I thought very hard about what to say. ‘You’re dancing inside your heart when you’re together.’
She considered this. ‘Does one have to dance all the time?’
I had to tread gingerly. ‘No, because other things get in the way. But mostly you dance. Like when you see him coming towards you, or when there’s a joy you share with him, or when he leaves you — only that’s a different sort of dance.’ I was getting so tangled with this that I wasn’t sure I was helping, but she was paying great attention.
‘I don’t think I dance in my heart with William, although he does say such nice things. So did Mr Harcourt, although I didn’t like it when he presumed — ’ She blushed and I wished Clara were present to guide her daughter. There were important things I needed to ask Hetty, however, so I had to persevere. I judged the time was right.
‘When did you last see Phineas, Hetty?’
She peeped out at me from under her eyelashes. ‘That’s just what the policeman asked me.’
‘And now I am. It’s for Phineas’ own sake.’
‘Do you mean see him here at Dolly’s?’
Ah. Now we were at the heart of it. She was fidgeting with the bows on her sleeve, so I knew she was choosing her words carefully. ‘Here or hereabouts, Hetty. Does he come here to see you often?’
‘He came here on a Tuesday, in the week before Mr Harcourt died,’ she said quickly. ‘We went for a walk to Victoria Park.’
‘Very pleasant,’ I said gravely. ‘And when did you last meet Phineas?’
Even quicker now. ‘He came last Friday. It’s my evening off.’
‘And before that?’ I persevered.
At being trapped, her mouth formed an O, and she looked at me most piteously. ‘Late on the afternoon the day Mr Harcourt died.’
‘Where did you see him?’
‘In Panyer Alley,’ she whispered. ‘He was staring at the Boy on the wall.’
That was a surprise and one I neither liked nor understood. Was it just chance that took him there? ‘Did you know Phineas would be there?’ I asked her.
‘No. He looked upset to see me. Phineas was talking to the Boy,’ she added.
That was strange indeed. What could Phineas find of interest in that carving?
‘He has his own world sometimes, Hetty. We all do.’
‘William doesn’t,’ she murmured.
I looked at her and realised what she was really telling me. ‘Only you can choose between them. And that’s when that heart of yours is dancing.’
Tears welled up again. ‘I’ve hurt Phineas, Mr Wasp.’
She didn’t say anything more, and all I could say was ‘It will pass.’
Hurt him though? How? She turned away and so I knew she had not wanted an answer to her question.
*
Staring me in the face was the fact that Phineas hadn’t told me that he’d been near the Row on the afternoon of the murder, perhaps because it didn’t seem important to him, or perhaps simply because I hadn’t asked him. But was it just by chance he was talking to the Boy of Panyer Alley? I remembered the way I had talked to Cockalorum out loud, and so perhaps Phineas also had a problem to solve. I began to have misgivings that I didn’t understand Phineas as much as I had thought I did. Did that mean I didn’t trust him anymore? No. Sometimes we should have faith, as I did in Phineas.
There must be more to be learned from those gentlemen, the Tarlton Ordinaries, however. They had spent the evening of the murder with Mr Harcourt. According to them he’d been boasting for some days about an old manuscript, and William Wright had heard them talking about lechery. The latter didn’t sound like business talk to me, but as Mr Harcourt had been there himself, they would hardly be discussing his rejection of Mrs Fortescue or his pursuit of Hetty. Yet that same evening he had met his death.
I couldn’t pin down what seemed so strange about this missing manuscript. These Tarlton Ordinaries were all in the book trade, rivals or not, so it didn’t make sense that they should be so reluctant to discuss it, even if it was only a fragment of Tarlton’s work. There could be no self-interest to make any or all of them wish to kill Mr Harcourt over it as his widow would probably inherit both the bookstore and its contents. Even if one of them had stolen this fragment, why would the others lie about it? Only, it occurred to me, if it was more valuable than they claimed and they were hopeful of obtaining it for themselves; perhaps they had entered into a pact to keep it a secret from Mrs Harcourt. Or, it occurred to me, was the pact about the murder?
Random thoughts flitted through my mind. Was Mr Harcourt’s murder connected to this manuscript or had William or Jericho followed him from Dolly’s to ensure that his pursuit of Hetty ended? Revenge too is a powerful motive, but I couldn’t see Mrs Fortescue garrotting her former lover. And then there was Flint, who must be lurking in the shadows of this case, given that Slugger was on the scene. Any of the Ordinaries could have hired Flint through his deputies. Mr Harcourt must have known Lairy John if he traded with Spitalfields dealers, which meant Mrs Fortescue would also have known him.
After I left Dolly’s I decided to walk through Panyer Alley. I began to despair over this dark warren, but I stopped to look at the Boy, trying to work out what his attraction was to Phineas. Perhaps it was the mystery about him. What was the lad doing? Just sitting on a panier of bread, so it’s thought, since this alley was once where the delivery men for the local bakers gathered for the day’s work. The Boy has his foot cocked up ready to examine, so ‘Pick-a-toe’ is the name some round here give to him, even though Ned believes he’s a climbing boy sitting on a roof. The Boy’s been here for hundreds of years, and according to Clara, the old chair-mender who sits here daily waiting for custom, Zechariah, sees himself as his guardian.
The carving sits at ground level in a fine brick surround let into the wall between two ancient houses. Below the carving of the Boy himself is a mysterious inscription from the old days when Queen Mary II and her husband William III claimed the throne. It reads:
When you have sought the Citty Round
Yet this is still the highest ground.
The inscription is dated the twenty-seventh of August 1688, but some believe that this might have been carved much later than the Boy himself, so I like to think that Mr Shakespeare once stood here, looking at the Boy. He lived in Shoreditch, not far away, and he would have known this place well. Richard Tarlton, who owned the Castle tavern on the site where Dolly’s now is, was a friend of Mr Shakespeare.
‘Are you the sweep I saw in Harcourt’s Antiquarian Booksellers?’ a lady’s imperious voice demanded from behind me, taking me by surprise.
I turned to see it was Mrs Fortescue herself. She was a handsome woman save for her hard face, but somehow I couldn’t take to her any more than I had to Mrs Harcourt when they were arguing in the boo
kstore.
‘Chimney sweeping’s my trade, madam. You’d like my services?’ I had no brush with me, but an appointment could be made.
She waved this offer aside. ‘I want to talk to you, sweep. Come with me. I’ll give you a shilling for your trouble.’
This was an offer I could not turn away, so I meekly followed in her wake towards Newgate Street and her home, which was overlooking the point where St Paul’s Churchyard meets Cheapside. She walked in front as befitted her status and me behind as befitted mine. On arrival, she graciously pointed me to the area steps leading down to the kitchen and sailed onwards to her own front door. Shortly afterwards she swept into the kitchen where I was sitting wondering what she wanted of me that would be worthy of a shilling. With me were a grim elderly lady and a young girl who grudgingly vacated the room at her command. Her parlour, I acknowledged, would hardly be suitable for a sweep, even though I had washed last Sunday.
‘Mr Splendour,’ she began, ‘who has kindly offered me a position in his bookstore, tells me that you have some kind of standing with the police.’
‘Experience, ma’am. I’m known to Constable Peters of the Detective Department Scotland Yard, who asked me to accompany him yesterday to Mr Splendour’s emporium.’
This passed without comment. Mrs Fortescue had other things on her mind.
‘I trust the constable is satisfied that this story about a manuscript being missing from Mr Harcourt’s premises has nothing to do with me.’ She hesitated, then added as though it were of no consequence, ‘What is the police’s opinion?’
‘I couldn’t say, ma’am. The police like my help but they don’t part with information.’
‘Nor you, it seems, Mr Wasp,’ she commented drily. ‘You also met Mr Timpson and Mr Manley, I understand.’
‘At the invitation of Scotland Yard’s Detective Department, ma’am.’
‘Did their information enable you to reach any conclusions about my late employer’s tragic death? One of those mobs one hears about, no doubt, or one of the servants at Dolly’s.’
I considered what I might say as she was looking very eager to hear my answer. ‘No conclusions, ma’am, save for the gentlemen’s opinion that this missing manuscript would have been worth very little, even if it were by Tarlton himself.’
‘Indeed?’ Her expression was hard to read, but it seemed to register relief.
‘Would that be your opinion too, Mrs Fortescue, should the manuscript appear?’
‘It would,’ she snapped. ‘But that it is in my possession is a mere fantasy dreamed up by a jealous woman of whose existence I had no prior knowledge before she attacked me in Harcourt’s Antiquarian Bookstore.’
Clara and I had agreed that it seemed unlikely that Mrs Fortescue had been unaware that Mr Harcourt was married, given that she had worked for him and paid private visits to his home as well.
‘Mr Harcourt was not a likeable person,’ Mrs Fortescue continued coldly, ‘and others share my opinion. An excellent employer of course, and a most erudite and worthy gentleman. I am naturally sorry to have lost my position there owing to his death, and no doubt Mrs Harcourt will greatly miss my services.’
A sage nod from me. ‘She will indeed, ma’am.’ I noticed she was looking at me expectantly, however I’ve found that when ladies — and sometimes gentlemen, although they mask it better — proclaim their own value, it is a sure sign that they are hoping for reassurance. Until now, Mrs Fortescue had not appeared a lady who doubted her own worth, but now I wondered if that was the case. Losing Mr Harcourt as an employer was a blow, but his dismissal of her from his private life was a bigger one, and for a moment she looked a lonely figure. I decided to strengthen my flattery.
‘Not many ladies or gentlemen would have your depth of knowledge of the bookselling trade,’ I added.
She inclined her head graciously. ‘What time do the police believe Mr Harcourt to have died?’ she enquired. I thought I detected a quiver in her voice.
‘Not long after midnight, ma’am.’
‘By which time fortunately I was at home with my maid, who will testify to that. I entreated Mr Harcourt to escort me home and I was most distressed when he abandoned me a few minutes later. Had it not been for the kindness of a gentleman and his wife driving along Newgate Street in a carriage, who stopped and then brought me to my home, I should have been even more distressed.’
To me, her willingness to impress this story on a mere sweep only made it seem more likely that there might be more to what had happened than she was telling me. From what I had seen of her maid she would loyally back her mistress’ story, whether true or false. Nevertheless, I could not believe that Mrs Fortescue herself could have garrotted Mr Harcourt. If she had hired Flint, however, that would be another matter. Mr Harcourt had made it clear he no longer desired her presence in his life well before his death, which would have given her plenty of time to plot her revenge.
Telling me her story must have steadied her for she added grandly: ‘That is all, my good man. You may go.’
Having indicated the door by which I should leave, she swept out of the kitchen. And I duly departed — without my shilling, on the grounds, she said, that I had given her no information.
*
As I reached King William IV Street on my journey home, it began to rain heavily and the pavements were a sea of bobbing umbrellas. This street is always noisy and always crowded no matter the time of day, because it leads to London Bridge, the great gateway to the far side of the Thames which is always a-hum with traffic and pedestrians. I tried to dodge between carriages and vans to reach the far side of the street as traffic clattered past me on all sides, but had to wait for a time; I was a puppet in a busy world that pulls the strings of so many. There was noise coming at me from all sides, from the clattering of horses’ hooves and the shouts and comments of pedestrians, but one voice momentarily rose above it from crowd milling around me.
‘You take care, Wasp. Keep out of my business.’
The voice was smooth and caressing, but I could not mistake its sinister undertone — nor its message. This was no Slugger warning me. This was Flint himself.
I spun round, hunting for its source, but the moving mob swirling around me, an umbrella jabbing at my face, the impassive faces of unknown people pushing past me, all made it impossible to do so.
I was left shivering. Worse than the warning, worse than the fear it had struck into me, was one nagging terror.
I knew that voice.
VI
The Soot Gathers
It had been a bad morning for business. Those who live on the Ratcliffe Highway aren’t known for their cleanliness or for parting with sixpence for chimney sweeping, but usually there is work enough. I had tried to put the fright of yesterday evening behind me, but it sneaked up all too often. Whose voice had it been? I could hear it still ringing through my head, but I could not give it an identity.
Ned and I had been up for an hour or two this Wednesday calling the streets before dawn, but only one maidservant came rushing out to secure our services. I saw Ned looking at her quite grown up like, as he followed her eagerly into the house.
We were deciding where to go next when I heard in the distance a mournful cry that I recognised: ‘Murder, ’orrible murder.’ Coming round a bend in the Highway I saw old Enoch the patterer, who sells broadsheets by calling the streets like Ned and me. Sometimes he has his daughter with him as a chaunter singer, but today he was alone.
Murders aren’t that rare in London’s docklands, so his cry didn’t make me gasp with horror, but the next one had my full attention.
‘Toff’s dastardly murderer arrested,’ he called. ‘Blood everywhere. Desperate struggle.’
A fearsome thought curled itself up inside my stomach. Toff? Could that be Mr Harcourt? Who had been arrested?
Ned had the same fright as I had. ‘Do you think it’s Phineas, guvnor?’
‘Let’s find out, lad.’ Already I was hurrying towards E
noch.
Enoch must be as old as Methuselah. He’s been walking these streets with his lugubrious face and straggly beard since I was a nipper and he looked old then. These patterers do a good job in passing on news especially to those that can’t read. You don’t have to buy his broadsheets, you can just listen to his patter to find out what’s happening in the world and slip him a farthing. Enoch invents half his news if it’s a dull day and by the time you’ve bought his broadsheet and found out the truth he’s moved on. He once told a crowd of twenty or more that Her Majesty had topped herself through grief at her husband’s passing. That had been a patter too far and no one bought a broadsheet from Enoch for many a long day.
‘Is this true about the toff’s murderer, Enoch? I said, not being able to afford a broadsheet.
‘As true as Moses and the tablets of stone,’ he assured me, being of a religious bent.
‘Has Phineas Snook been copped?’ I asked with dread, although to my astonishment I saw Ned handing over a penny to Enoch for a broadsheet of our own.
Enoch’s old eyes gleamed with satisfaction but then he spotted another potential customer. ‘Local murderer topped,’ he cried out eagerly.
‘Enoch,’ I said sharply. ‘If it’s Phineas Snook, he ain’t yet been tried at the Old Bailey.’
‘He’s been cuffed,’ Enoch replied crossly. ‘They don’t let no one go. Not till they walk through the Newgate passage to meet hangman Jack Ketch. Then they goes up to their Maker, who knows where to send them. Right back down again into hellfire.’
‘Not Phineas,’ I howled. ‘Hear that, Enoch? Not Phineas. You call out, “Innocent man pinched for toff’s murder” instead.’
Enoch was doubtful about this. ‘If you say so, Mr Wasp,’ he muttered grudgingly. He shuffled off, crying out, ‘Toff’s murderer wrongly nabbed.’
I seized the broadsheet from Ned. There it was: ‘Mr Arnold Harcourt’s murderer arrested.’ For once, Enoch had not been exaggerating.