by J C Briggs
He had gone again only a few years ago to see the interior of St. Mark’s in Venice. The novelty had worn off — perhaps because he knew how it all worked, perhaps because he had seen it in life, but still the spectacle had brought back vivid memories of that time in Venice. You forgot the science of it, seeing the outline of the familiar cupolas and columns in twilight shadow. Within you marvelled at the way the twilight dissolved as tapers lit up and the shadows became worshippers at a succession of altars, and all the while organ music played then the morning light dimmed the tapers and the figures faded. The cloud-capped towers, the solemn temples melted into thin air. He might have been back there and would be stepping out of the church to find Francisco, the gondolier.
Venice, he thought now, where Agosto Sabatini, Rolando’s father had come from, and where, for all he knew, Rolando had returned — with Violet Pout, maybe? Or, perhaps not. What of a possible other lover? He could only hope that Mrs Sabatini would contact him. At least he could tell Anne Brown that something might come of that.
6: Dry Bones
‘In a water tank?’
Sergeant Rogers nodded. Superintendent Sam Jones raised an eloquent eyebrow and indicated that the sergeant should sit and tell his tale. ‘Brief as you can,’ he said, knowing Rogers’s tendency to embellishment — something acquired since his promotion to sergeant. He seemed to think that a lengthy account carried more weight.
‘At the back of an empty house in Alfred Place — number five in the South Crescent. Stemp and Feak was — were —’ Rogers was aiming at improvement in every way — ‘on their beat when they sees a labourin’ man lookin’ up an’ down the street. He waves them over and says they’ve found bones in a water tank — human bones because they’ve seen a skull. Stemp and Feak go to look. There’s another cove standin’ by the tank with a spade. There was no water in it and these two had been clearing out the silt. Feak came back to Bow Street to report it.’
‘How long has the house been empty?’
‘Five years, so they said. It’s being fitted up for new tenants.’
‘What have you done so far?’
‘Stemp’s guarding the bones and I sent Feak to the agent’s to find out who owns the house and who lived in it five years ago, and who’s taking it over. We got the agent’s name from the foreman. He’s still there. I told him to wait.’
‘Good — the bones’ll have to go to the mortuary. I’ve an idea. I’ll go to see Doctor Symonds at King’s College Hospital. I’ve worked with him before. I’ll get him to look at them. What are your thoughts?’
‘Well, the workmen had taken the cover off. The tank’s lead, o’ course, and stands on bricks. An’ I’m thinkin’ if someone wanted to hide, a kiddie, say, they couldn’t have slid it back in place — a kiddie could have got trapped, but a man, well, a man could have shoved it off, I daresay.’
‘Someone trapped in there? That’s a horrible thought.’
‘Or a body, sir, dumped?’
‘Could be. Let’s see what Doctor Symonds has to say. Anything else I should know?’ Jones knew his sergeant very well — Rogers would have a titbit saved to the end.
‘Stemp recognised one of the labourers —’
‘And?’
‘Peely Peel,’ Rogers grinned.
‘So Stemp gave him a long hard stare?’
‘He did an’ he says that Peely looked shifty, but then he always does, and he knows Stemp. Made him nervous, p’raps. Anyhow, Stemp wonders what Peely’s inched. He was first in the tank.’
‘Stemp was thinking of valuables?’
‘He was — a watch, or coins like on that body that was taken out of the river at Waterloo Bridge.’
Jones remembered the skeleton of a man discovered at the bridge. There had been a purse of sovereigns with him. ‘Oh, yes, and he’d been missing for years.’
‘Stemp asked them if they’d found anything else. Course, Peely was indignant — doin’ an honest day’s work an’ all that. He wasn’t in the tank when Feak and Stemp got there.’
‘Turned respectable, has he?’
Peely was a frequent guest at Bow Street police station — pick-pocket, filcher of gold watches, jewellery, silk-snatcher, anything small and easily sold on.
‘I doubt it — seein’ what he might get from the house, I shouldn’t wonder. Think of it, sir, all locked up for five years. Untouched, says the foreman who was doin’ up the inside. Peely and his mate had been puttin’ all sorts o’ stuff into crates. An’ Peely’s a known associate of our favourite fence, Fikey Chubb.’
Jones laughed. ‘So, he is. Dear old Fikey — not seen him for a while. Well, tell Stemp to keep his eyes on Peely until I bring Doctor Symonds.’
Jones went to find Doctor Symonds. King’s College Hospital was not far from Bow Street, just across Drury Lane in Portugal Street. Murder, thought Jones, you had to wonder about a skeleton found in a water cistern. No doubt Doctor Symonds would be able to tell them something about the bones.
Doctor Symonds was in the mortuary. He offered to bring the bones to the hospital where he could examine them. Two mortuary attendants accompanied them.
‘Of course,’ said Jones as they walked into Drury Lane and up to Broad Street, ‘the five years may not be relevant. The house has been unoccupied for five years so it could be less — someone dumped an inconvenient dead body in an unused cistern.’
‘Unlikely more than five years. If the body was put there when the house was occupied, the water would be contaminated. They’d know about that soon enough.’
‘What can you tell from a skeleton of five years?’
‘Approximate age, sex, of course, and if there are any broken bones that might tell us if the person jumped in — though that seems very unlikely if there was a cover on. Broken or fractured bones might tell me if the person had been injured. I had a case recently — a woman dragged from the river — the verdict was found drowned, but there were traces of indentation of the temporal bone suggested a blow to the head — not that we could know what made that blow.’
In the back garden of the house in South Crescent where Sergeant Rogers waited, Jones had a look in the tank. It was as Rogers had described. There was silt in the bottom — about a foot deep and he saw the skull and the bones which Peely had uncovered. The skull was small — a child’s? Trapped as Rogers had speculated. Or a woman? The muddy silt had been turned over and Jones could see what might be the remnants of cloth.
‘Bring everything you can,’ he said to the mortuary attendant who climbed up the ladder and began to hand over the bones to Doctor Symonds and the other attendant.
Jones watched as Doctor Symonds carefully placed the skull into a cardboard box he had brought for the purpose. Various bones followed: the long bones of arms and legs, rib bones, the bones of a foot, a hand, and others too encrusted with mud for him to tell what they were. There did seem to be some pieces of cloth and what looked like bits of leather, possibly from a shoe. The man in the tank was doing a thorough search.
‘Buttons, I think,’ the man said to Doctor Symonds, handing him the little pieces. The doctor rubbed at them with a piece of cloth.
‘Silver buttons.’ He showed them to Jones. It was not possible to tell from where they had come. Might be a dress or a waistcoat, but silver suggested that the owner had been someone of some substance. Not a child then, thankfully. A child with silver buttons would have been missed.
Jones thought about the houses in South Crescent. There were seven substantial town houses, tall and narrow and rather elegant in their semi-circular arrangement. The inhabitants, he guessed, would be professional men, lawyers, doctors, merchants and so on. He needed to find out who the neighbours were and who of them had known the occupants of number five. In his office he had a copy of the Royal Blue Book — a most useful volume which would tell him the names of the neighbours. However, he wanted to wait for Feak to come back with his findings. Jones preferred to ask his questions from a position of some knowledge at
least. He wanted to know who had lived in the house and he wanted to know more about the skeleton.
Doctor Symonds was sealing the box. He bade farewell to Jones and told him that he would let him know about the bones by tomorrow.
Now, thought Jones, let’s have a look at Peely and his mate.
They were in the kitchen basement where Stemp was keeping his gimlet gaze upon them. Not that there was much about Peely that was worth gazing upon. Peely, full name, Robert Peel, was as unlike his tall, handsome politician namesake as a crow from a swan. Peely was a short, squat, thatch-haired man with a face the colour of old potato peelings and nose like a twisted root. A smell of decayed vegetables hung about him as if he had been brought forth from an old sack long forgotten by the green-grocer. He lounged against a kitchen cupboard, his hands in his pockets and gave Jones a leering grin.
‘Wotcher, Mr Jones, long time no see.’
‘Going straight, Mr Peel, I believe.’
‘Got me nippers ter think of.’
That was a first, Jones thought. Peely’s lad, about ten, was as much a thief as Peely — and cleverer. Even Stemp hadn’t managed to make anything stick on him. Peely’s wife and daughter had looked half-starved and beaten down when they had come to Bow Street in search of Peely. However, Jones made no comment. He merely asked if either of them had seen anything other than the bones.
Peely spoke first. ‘Dint look, Mr Jones. Give me a shockin’ turn. I was outta there like a flea off a dog’s arse.’
‘And you, Mr Hand?’
‘No, I stood on the ladder when Peely shouted an’ saw a bleedin’ death’s ’ead grinnin’ at me. Then I goes ter find the bobby.’
So, Peely had been on his own in the tank while James Hand had fetched the police. He had certainly had the opportunity to filch something. Jones thought about the silver buttons. What else might have survived?
‘Turn out your pockets, if you please.’
Peely was, naturally, indignant. ‘’Ere wot’s the bleedin’ game? Honest workin’ men, we is. Yer sayin’ we’ve inched somethin’?’
‘Not at all, Mr Peel, I have my report to make. I need to be thorough.’
‘More than yer job’s worth, eh? Well, I ain’t ’idin’ nuffink.’
Peely emptied his pockets. There were a few pennies, a bit of string and a wooden button in one, and in the other a dirty heel of bread. The contents of James Hand’s pockets were similarly unprepossessing. Of course, Peely would have had time to hide something valuable. They’d have to search.
‘Thank you. Where do I find you both? You’ll be needed for the inquest.’
James Hand gave his address readily. Peely looked uncertain for the first time.
‘Where, Mr Peel?’
‘Between lodgin’s.’
‘Where are your wife and children?’
‘Wiv ’er ma, up in Camden — Bayham Street.’
So much for his nippers to think of. ‘And you?’ Jones insisted.
‘At Fikey Chubb’s. Got a crib there fer a few days.’
Jones indicated to Stemp that they were to go outside. Let Peely sweat, he thought.
‘He’ll ’ave ’idden somethin’,’ Stemp observed. ‘I know it. Want me to ’ave a search?’
They looked round the garden. It would take an age and it would be dark soon. There were some outbuildings, plenty of shrubbery, flowerbeds, a little summer house with broken panes and a back door, which would lead to the mews, probably.
‘I think we’ll send him on his way — out of the front door and you can wait. He’ll come back if there is anything and you can nab him then. I’ll put a man in the alley. How long was James Hand away before he saw you and Feak?’
‘Ten minutes or so, Peely said, though Hand didn’t really know. Coulda bin longer and Peely ’ad plenty o’ time to stow somethin’.’
Peely and James Hand were escorted out through the front door. Jones went to speak to the foreman in charge of the redecoration of the house. It seemed that all the furniture and goods had been removed over several days and were to be sold at auction. Mr Faithfull, the house agent, looked after all that.
While they waited for Feak to return, Jones went through the empty rooms. Stemp went back into the garden with his bull’s eye lantern — might as well have a look, he said, unable to sit still.
There was nothing to tell who had lived there. Jones looked at the pale spaces on the wall where pictures had been; he went up the hollow-sounding stairs and hearing the echo of his tread felt the desolation of the lonely house where his own bull’s eye lamp cast shadows in the falling twilight. He peered into empty bedrooms; in one a cracked mirror showed him a haunted looking man who seemed like a ghost in the shadows.
He went up to the top storey, where in one attic room there was still an iron bed frame with a rolled up mattress of ticking lay. There was a cracked bowl and jug on a marble stand. The room smelt of dust. It was very cold. Servant’s room, he thought. I need to find out who the servants were. Could the skeleton be that of a servant girl? But then the silver buttons? Someone must know.
A sound below took him clattering down the flights of stairs to find Feak with an anxious-looking well-dressed man. Mr Faithfull, the house agent, he surmised.
‘Mr Faithfull, sir,’ said Feak. ‘I asked him to come to talk to you.’
The House agent held out his hand. ‘Francis Faithfull — my premises are at 33 Conduit Street. We are auctioneers and valuers as well as letting agents. Constable Feak has told me about the — er — bones. I thought you would want to know about the family.’
‘Superintendent Jones from Bow Street. I should very much like to know about the house owners. You are auctioneers. I take you are selling the contents of the house.’
‘We are.’
‘Then I should like to examine the contents — the furniture and so on — after you have told me what you know of the family. It is getting very dark — and cold in here. Perhaps we could go to your offices?’
7: Can These Bones Speak?
Think of Christmas in the tremendous wastes of ice and snow that lie in the remotest region of the earth, in the interminable white deserts of the Polar Sea…
Dickens put down the paper. The article for Household Words was on the subject of the missing Franklin expedition. The ships Erebus and Terror had set out in May 1845. Nothing had been heard of Sir John Franklin since. He thought of that icy wasteland. Missing, perhaps buried deep under great mountains of snow, never to be found. He had written that perhaps somewhere at the end of 1850, Sir John and his fellows might keep Christmas. Heaven grant it so… There was hope, he had written. Not that he believed it.
Missing. Violet Pout and Rolando Sabatini, and Jemima Curd — all three might just as well be buried in that frozen wilderness for all he could find out. He had heard nothing from Mrs Carlyle in the last two days, and Mrs Sabatini seemed to have vanished, too.
He blotted his paper, took his hat and coat. He would walk over to Bow Street and have a word with Sam Jones — it would be good to talk to him, if Sam had time for a chop.
As he neared the police station, he saw Jones coming towards him. In a hurry, it seemed. No chop then.
‘Bones,’ said Jones, ‘I’m off to see a Doctor Symonds about a skeleton. Come with me if you want and we can have our chop later.’
On their way, Jones told him about the discovery of the bones in the water tank. ‘The house agent, Mr Faithfull, told me about the old lady, Mrs Wyatt, who had died there five years ago. The house has been shut up since then. It belongs to her brother, a clergyman who lives in St John’s Wood. Now, of more interest at the moment, it seems that Mrs Wyatt had some sort of companion, a Miss Flora Lambert, a young woman of twenty years, but Mr Faithfull didn’t know what became of her. What I saw of the bones suggested a female.’
‘Murder?’ asked Dickens.
‘Could be — I do wonder how a body got in there. Anyway, let’s go in and see if Doctor Symonds can tell us anythin
g interesting.’
Doctor Symonds could. He had fitted the bones together to make a complete skeleton of an individual which lay on the mortuary slab. All that was left of a once living, breathing creature. Such a small collection of pieces. They seemed very pitiable to Dickens — a woman, or a child? Left to die in a water tank or disposed of as so much rubbish.
‘A woman,’ Doctor Symonds said, ‘from the formation of the pelvis, which is larger from wing to wing than that of a man. As you can see, she was about five foot tall.’
‘Some bones are broken,’ Jones observed.
‘Yes, the arm and the left leg, consistent, perhaps, with her having fallen or having been dropped into the tank — and one of the neck bones is fractured.’
Dickens interrupted. He had remembered something. ‘I heard a story, years ago, about a young woman who had been engaged for fourteen years to a poor fellow who was fighting his way, very slowly, to the Bar. He was called at last, but he suffered a congestion of the brain. The young woman was taken to see him — he died at the moment she arrived and she, desperate with grief, threw herself from a window, and by a kind of miracle, plunged, head-foremost into a water tank.’
‘She died?’ asked Doctor Symonds.
‘No, but her wits were gone. I was thinking about if this woman had gone into the tank when there was water in it. In my story, the young woman, Miss White, was unconscious, but otherwise unhurt.’