by J C Briggs
Magpie? What could he want? He had liked him, but he knew nothing about him. Except that he had told Magpie that he was looking for Jemima Curd. Perhaps he had found out something about her. It must be secret. Else why midnight? Unless that was simply Magpie’s flair for the dramatic — Dickens understood that. Or might it be something to do with Rarx and the stolen jewellery from the water tank? Unlikely, but a temptation nonetheless. Whatever it was, Magpie lived on the edge. His conduct, however quixotic, was criminal. That brought him to Sam. Ought he to tell him? Tell him what? That he was meeting a thief.
He thought about the young man who had whirled him through those alleys and whose good humour and shabby theatricality had appealed to him. And that beautiful, silent girl in her old-fashioned velvet dress. There was a mystery there.
He looked again at the note. A thought struck him. He looked at the wax seal which had cracked in two as he had opened it hastily. He joined the two pieces together and, taking a magnifying glass from his desk, examined it closely. One letter came into focus: J. The other twisted round the J might have been an N — it was too broken to tell. Magpie had a name then — though, of course, it might not have been his seal — the snapper-up of trifles. Green wax. Men usually used red. Ladies used colours. From whom had he received a note sealed with green wax? Dolly Marchant. He had burnt the note, of course.
He would go. Of course he would. A night walk in his long coat and a low-crowned hat.
34: On an Amateur Beat
Sam Jones was anxious, too. He had gone home to play with his children, and to talk to his wife at supper by the fire.
‘What’s worrying you?’ asked Elizabeth as they sat in the parlour.
The children were in bed and Scrap had gone back to the stationery shop in Crown Street, disappointed that there was nothing in the detecting line required of him. Jones had promised to send for him if he were needed.
Jones told Elizabeth about Susan Harvest and the Reverend who grieved so hard for her, and about Watcher and the Barrrow Reservoir.
‘So you don’t know if she was murdered?’
‘No, it’s just those suggestive bits of evidence — nothing in themselves, but tantalising pieces of a jigsaw with big pieces missing. I’ll have to be patient and see what Maxwell and his men turn up. I hope I’m not wasting time on Susan Harvest.’
‘It won’t be wasted if you can take her home — even if her death is not connected to the others. It will be a good thing for the Reverend Harvest.’
‘Of course, you are right, my love. There’s little good I can think of doing just now. Who is he? And what’s his motive?’
‘Do you know, I thought about the girls you told me about and Dickens’s experiences in Italy and I thought about Browning’s Porphyria.’
‘Who? You’ll have to explain.’
‘It’s a poem about a man who strangles his lover with her own hair.’
‘His motive?’
Elizabeth laughed. ‘Well, Mr Superintendent, that’s what made me think. He waits for her in a deserted cottage. He thinks that she is held back by fear of her reputation. He wonders if she loves him at all. She comes and tells him that she does, and in that moment when she leans against him, in that perfect moment, he kills her. The point is that he is mad — I wondered about your artist. Is he mad?’
‘Possesses them and kills them to keep them?’
‘Well, from what you told me, he gains nothing by their deaths — not money, at any rate. Not greed, surely. He can’t be jealous — they can’t all have had lovers who supplanted him. He can hardly be killing all of them out of rage.’
‘My lady detective — I’ll try that theory on Charles Dickens. It will appeal to him, I’m sure, and it’s the only explanation that makes any sense to me — mad though it is. But looking for a madman, Elizabeth…’
Jones sipped his brandy and stared into the fire. Dickens’s words came back to him: a domestic hearth … things wanting … confoundedly miserable. What sadness in those words. He sighed.
Elizabeth watched him. ‘What about Charles — you sounded anxious when I asked if he was coming.’
‘Only that he found himself in a dilemma. He went to see Sabatini’s aunt, but didn’t tell her about working with me. She told him some confidential information and eventually he had to tell me.’
‘But that’s bound to happen. He knows that.’
‘Oh, he does — he was —’
‘A young and charming aunt was she?’
Jones chuckled. ‘I am not at liberty to say. I don’t want to betray his confidence.’
‘You just did in that word “confidence”.’
‘Too sharp for me, you are. Thought of joining the force?’
‘That’ll be the day. A lady policeman — that would be a thing. However, I am guessing that the lady was somewhat smitten, magnetised by a pair of dark blue eyes.’
‘Something like that but I was concerned. I thought about what might happen if he were faced with a painful choice involving someone really close to him. And, I think about Scrap, too — putting them in danger.’
‘Try keeping them away.’
At the shop in Crown Street, Scrap could not sleep. Little Charley Rogers, Charles Samuel after his godfathers, had cried — for hours, it seemed. Teething, Mollie had said, letting the little boy suck on her finger, dipped in sugar and wine. Eventually, he had slept and Mollie had gone exhausted to her bed.
But Scrap was wide awake now. Mollie’s words had sparked a memory. A baby crying, a baby with red cheeks all crumpled up and his own finger dipped in gin — they had no sugar — and his mother in her bed, unable to get up. He remembered her cough — a terrible noise which had frightened him. She seemed unable to breathe and he had given her gin, too. And then she and that baby were gone. Silly, he had called her, not understanding it was really Cecilia. In his boyish way, he had thought it apt. His mother had called him Scrap. He had been very small. Silly had been a big baby. He remembered lugging her about the single room they had lived in. To keep her quiet when his ma was at work.
He hadn’t known that he had forgotten it all until Charley Rogers had screamed his head off. He didn’t know where his mother and Silly had gone. No one had told him.
His pa had come back. He had called him “Son”. Not that he wanted a son. He had wanted a slave, someone to bring in money, by working for it or thieving. Pa didn’t care. Son? Scrap? He didn’t know what his name was. He must have one. Charley Rogers, Charles Dickens, Sam Jones, Eleanor Brim — they all had names. How would you find out such a thing? Charley Rogers had been christened. He’d cried when the water poured on him. Scrap had watched it all intently, but he didn’t know if he had been through the same thing. One thing he did know: he wouldn’t have cried.
He hadn’t cried when his pa’s woman had slapped him — more than once. He hadn’t cried when his pa had clouted him for coming home empty-handed. He had run and he had stayed away. They didn’t care. He’d gone back from time to time, slept, and helped himself to what little food they had — when he was desperate — and listened to their drunken rages. ’Opeless, they woz. Dead loss.
And when he had found the little dog, Poll, property of Eleanor and Tom Brim, he had returned again and again to the shop to look after them. Their pa was dying of consumption. He was needed.
But that memory, so long forgotten, of his mother’s cough and poor little Silly, brought tears to his eyes. He had a sense, sometimes, of not belonging anywhere — not quite at Crown Street, especially when Charley Rogers had come. He felt most at home at Mr Jones’s house where Eleanor and Tom were, Eleanor, especially, and Mrs Jones, of course. He loved her. But did he belong?
No sense in squawking, he told himself, dashing away the tears. Yer lucky. Mr Jones needs yer still, and Mr D. — ’e’d be the man ter ask ’oo ’e woz. Mr D would know ’ow yer could find out on the quiet.
He looked out into the street. It was quiet now. No one much about. Scrap liked watching
, wondering about the folk he saw. That queer old woman in the white dress wot rambled about talkin’ ter ’erself. Looked like some ancient bride wot ’ad lost er way ter the church. Should tell Mr D about ’er. There was the man wiv the wooden leg, stumpin’ about usually, pickin’ up rubbish from the street. Yer’d think e’d found treasure the way ’e grinned an’ gibbered at ’imself. Madman, he supposed.
An ’oo is this cove comin’ down the street? Lookd like a sneak wiv ’is collar up an’ is ’at low down over ’is face. Scrap pressed his nose to the window. The gas light caught two moony discs of glass. Blimey, I knows ’oo that is.
Scrap snatched up his jacket and cap, opened his door, listened up the stairs, crept down one flight, tip-toed into the shop, took the key from the drawer under the counter, put his hand on the bell so that it wouldn’t ring, unlocked the door and slipped out into the street just in time to see his quarry disappearing into Goodge Street.
35: The Night Bird
It was easy enough. Scrap kept his distance. He followed Dickens across Oxford Street into Soho Square. There were enough late-night folk about so that he could dodge behind someone when Dickens crossed Long Acre. Woz ’e going to Bow Street?
But Mr Jones wasn’t there. If Mr D ’ad somethin’ urgent to tell him e’d a’ gone ter Norfolk Street. In ’is disguise, too. Some secret meetin’, must be. Ter do with the murder? It might not be safe. Mr D took risks — want afraid o’ the streets. Knowed ’em all like ’e ’ad a map in ’is ’ead, but Mr Jones told ’im ter be careful — yer not immortal, ’e’d sed. Scrap had looked up the word in Eleanor’s dictionary — and the other word — that was a hard one, but Eleanor had guessed it and had shown it to Scrap: in-im-it-ab-le, she’d said.
Inimitable — good word that. Meant that there woz no one like yer, so Eleanor sed. Scrap had wondered if he was inimitable. Now he thought he was — no one else called Scrap. Mr D. had stopped. Scrap dodged into a doorway, nearly stepping on some houseless sleeper who did not stir from his dreams of a cottage garden where a woman waited for news.
Scrap watched Mr Dickens look down Bow Street. Thinkin’ about Mr Jones, p’raps, but then he passed on into Drury Lane.
’E ’ad a friend livin’ in Lincoln’s Inn Fields — that Mr Forster. Bit late fer that. Then they were in Carey Street. It was quieter now. And darker. Mr Dickens turned into an alley. Scrap stood still. He could hear Mr Dickens’s footsteps. He peered round the corner into the darkness. Best get a move on.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder — a young woman — more a girl, really, hollow-eyed and stinking, clothed in a threadbare frock and barefoot. ‘Gotta penny?’
Scrap shook his head. He was anxious now — the footsteps had faded. But the girl grasped his jacket with hands that looked like claws. ‘Giv’ us a penny — I’m starvin’. Do yer fer a penny.’
He tried to shake her off, but she held him tighter. He didn’t want to create a row and fumbled in his pocket. Sixpence. He gave it to her and darted into the alley, running as fast as he could on tiptoe. The alley turned into another. Only one way to go and then there was a corner and two dark tunnels. Which one?
Then he heard it. A sudden cry. He didn’t wait, but flung himself into the darkness. At the end of the first tunnel, under a miserable gaslight two men were grappling. The bigger man with his hands at the smaller man’s neck and the smaller man’s head pulled back.
‘Perlice!’ shouted Scrap, running with his arms whirling, looking in the shadows, bigger and threatening. The taller man dropped his victim and ran off.
‘Mr Dickens — yer awright?’ Scrap was there in an instant, picking up the hat which had fallen to reveal the victim’s identity.
‘Scrap! What the devil?’
‘Follered yer — tell yer later. What ’appened?’
‘He jumped me and tried to strangle me with this.’ He showed Scrap the dirty bandage which had been thrown round his neck.
‘Garotter — yer woz lucky.’
‘I got my hands under it. Good job I remembered to wear the gloves this time. Glad you turned up, though — he was bigger than me.’
‘Yer not ’urt?’
‘No — gave me a shock. I didn’t see him or hear him.’
‘That’s ’ow they does it. Where yer goin’?’
‘Ah — to a midnight meeting.’
‘’Opes that wozn’t ’im, Mr D.’
‘I don’t think so. He’s a man who goes by the name of Magpie. I told him I was looking for Jemima Curd.’
‘Wot was murdered. Are yer sure this Magpie cove ain’t the man wot attacked yer?’
‘No — he didn’t know Jemima, but he wanted to meet me at Rarx, the pawnbroker’s. He didn’t say why, but I wondered if he knows anything about Jemima now. Her murder was in the papers. I’m sure he wasn’t my attacker — too big, too rough and he stank like the very devil. No, Scrap, I’m sure.’
Scrap wondered about the girl who’d accosted him. Accomplice, p’raps. ‘I’ll come wiv yer then. Jest ter be sure. Where?’
‘Near Hemlock Court.’
Scrap gave him a look. ‘Poison ain’t it — ’emlock?’
They walked on into Little Shire Street and to Rarx’s shop on the corner. They waited in the shadows, hats tipped over their eyes, for the man who walked in the darkness, for the man who called himself Magpie.
They heard the clocks striking the hour, the spreading circles of vibration echoing out into eternal space. Then Dickens felt the silence profounder. Not a footstep. No light in Rarx’s shop window or in the window above from where he had shot at the thief and his night time accomplice. Perhaps Magpie would not come.
Then they heard it. In that stillest of silences, the sound of a footfall, of someone who came by stealth. Then a low whistle.
They waited — to be sure that it was not the midnight garrotter. A figure appeared from the shadows beside Rarx’s shop. He was wrapped in a long cloak with a hood. For a moment, Dickens thought of the monk by the Palazzo Mariano. Or Count Dellombra walking the night? Just a legend. But he hesitated and they watched. The muffled figure looked this way and that. He was waiting for someone.
‘I’ll go across,’ whispered Dickens.
Scrap stayed in the shadows.
Dickens stepped out of the shadows and called quietly, ‘Magpie?’
‘Mr Dickens.’ Magpie held out his hand. Dickens grasped it. Magpie’s handshake was firm, the clasp of a friend.
‘What is this all about?’
‘I must take you to see someone — someone who very much wants to see you.’
‘There is someone with me — a boy only.’
‘You didn’t trust me?’
‘Jemima Curd has been murdered — I expect you know that. And Violet Pout, the governess at Sir Neptune Fane’s house —’ he looked hard at Magpie — ‘you know that, too.’ I know him now, thought Dickens. I have seen that face since our first meeting, or one very like it in the mouth and eyes. A handsome face.
‘I do.’
‘You are taking me to Rolando Sabatini — you are the man about whom Pryor, the footman, told me.’
‘I am. Rolando did not kill them, Mr Dickens. You will believe me when you see him. He is in hiding — at the theatre in Drury Lane. Will you come — and your boy?’
Dickens whistled again and Scrap came across the street to be introduced to the cove Magpie. Scrap looked at him closely and took the proffered hand.
‘Where we goin’?’ he asked Dickens.
‘To the theatre in Drury Lane.’
Scrap nodded, satisfied. A stone’s throw from Bow Street.
Magpie led them through a black tangle of alleys which took them across Clements Lane into Clare Market where the smell of charcoal from the braziers and the smell of offal and meat from the slaughterhouses still lingered. There were a few urchins scrabbling about under the stalls, grubbing for food, and a few loungers in doorways. A young man in a black coat, carrying a black bag passed them, looking a
bout him confusedly. There was a story about a young man, supposedly the ghostly presence of a poor fellow from the country who had lost his way to the Strand and was doomed to circle these lanes and alleys for eternity. Perhaps he was that young man — or a doctor going to an emergency case.
From Stanhope Street they came into White Horse Yard and crossed Drury Lane into where a little alley led to a back door. Dickens knew it well. He had been at this very door with William Macready, his great friend who had acted Henry VIII just a couple of years ago. Magpie had a key — a skeleton, no doubt. Handy thing to have.
The familiar smell that always set his heart aflame. The smell of sawdust, solvent, greasepaint, of smoke and of gaslights. The smell of a world set apart — a world in which you could become someone else — as Magpie had.
They went down some stairs to where Dickens knew there were cellars. Magpie pushed open a door and they were in a property room lit by Magpie’s dark lantern — a resourceful fellow, he — Dickens felt at home amongst the robes and cloaks, even the masks gazing with their blind eyes. They threaded their way past the weaponry, the pikes and halberds, a dagger — Macbeth’s, no doubt. Surely those were the gouts of blood. The armour clinked, a helmet with its visor up, out of which he expected to see the ghostly face of Hamlet’s father. There was a wreath of flowers, dried and crumbling — Ophelia’s, perhaps. Poor drowned girl. Magpie pushed aside a long black gown which reminded him of Macready as Hamlet, and there was the arras behind which Polonius had hidden and through which he had been fatally stabbed. Dickens looked back at Scrap who was gazing about him in wonder.
There was a little low door behind this arras. Magpie knocked and whispered his name. ‘Only Jack.’ So, it was he, as he had thought. Not J. N. — the initials on the green wax, the green his mother used — Jack Marchant.