by J C Briggs
38: A Woman in Black
‘The young fool,’ was what Mr Jones said, but he sympathised with Rogers’s anger and humiliation. ‘I know Alf — in a crowd like that, it would be impossible to find him. No doubt, they’d be on his side, too. He’s a clever devil, that’s certain. Charles, have you no idea where he lives?’
‘No, only that it was somewhere near Drury Lane.’
‘We’ll not find him — he’s an actor. All you can do, Alf, is to tell the beat constables to keep an eye out.’ Rogers left them and Jones turned to Dickens. ‘Well, does this Polidori exist, do you think, or has Marchant made him up?’
‘Not a name you’d choose if you had any wit. Doctor John Polidori, Byron’s doctor, wrote a story called The Vampyr back in 1818. Theatre folk know it — vampires were very popular a few years ago — dramatizations and so forth. Surely, he’d choose something —’ Dickens remembered as he spoke, a long black shape hanging from a window and thinking of a vampire then. But then he remembered two laughing eyes — surely not — ‘something more ordinary — even the name of someone who did work once at the theatre — to send us on a wild goose chase — if he’s guilty, that is.’
‘You don’t believe it?’
‘No, I don’t think I do — he was genuinely upset about Jianna. Rogers said he must be a damned good actor to make it all up. And, wait, I can’t imagine that he seduced Mariana Fane. He knows she is Sir Neptune’s daughter, his own half-sister —’
‘Byron did,’ Jones said. Dickens looked startled. ‘Elizabeth has told me about Byron — and she told me about Robert Browning.’
‘Browning? How does he — oh, Porphyria’s Lover. Strangling and madness.’
‘It sounded mad to me, but the lover killed just the one woman. I suppose that made some sort of sense.’
Dickens shook his head, banishing the image of Ferrara and Parisina’s cell that the name “Byron” called up. ‘I don’t think Marchant’s mad — odd, perhaps, but who isn’t? I do know that he hated Sir Neptune. That was the cause of the estrangement from his mother — when he found out that Sir Neptune is his father, but incest — it would be monstrous. He’s had his revenge, anyway.’
‘By leaving his mother?’
‘No, according to Mrs Marchant, he stole Lady Fane’s diamonds. She wears paste. Sir Neptune knows.’
‘He told the police they’d been returned.’
‘She persuaded him that she would get them back — perhaps Sir Neptune lied about the diamonds for her sake.’
‘Not wanting a scandal more likely. A thief — not for his own gain —’ Jones gave him a knowing look — ‘Magpie, eh?’
‘You are a cunning old cove. You know all about Magpie, don’t you?’
‘I’d heard the name. Stemp knew all about him. Rarx has complained about theft — ironic, ain’t it? How did you meet him? You never said.’
‘I rescued him just as he had relieved Rarx of a gold watch belonging to a friend — I didn’t know that at the time. Rarx blew my hat off with his blunderbuss.’
Jones laughed. ‘Serves you right — consorting with criminals. “Relieved”, indeed. Robbery I’d call it, but being a thief does not make him a murderer. This friend, now — he must have pawned the gold watch so Rarx must know who he is. That’s a lead. I’ll send Stemp. I’ll tell you something else now. Polidori is not the name Lilian Judd gave me. She told me what she knew about Susan Harvest. Lilian Judd was a kitchen maid at a house in William Street next door to one belonging to an artist where a Mr Antonio Ferrara was staying.’
‘Ferrara!’
‘My thought, too. The owner of the house is a James Everard, who has gone to America — the house belongs to someone else now, but Inspector Maxwell is trying to trace any relatives of Mr Everard who might know something of Antonio Ferrara.’
‘What did Lilian Judd tell you?’
‘That Susan lived there with the artist. That she was unhappy, that she’d felt sorry for her. They talked sometimes. Susan seemed lonely, but said she couldn’t go home. Her father was a vicar — she couldn’t tell her family that she was living with a man. Then they were gone. Lilian read about the drowned girl — she read about the lilac gown and the white bonnet and thought about Susan which is why she asked Watcher.’
‘Why didn’t she come forward?’
‘Too frightened of her mistress — a tartar, she said, frightened she’d lose her place. She felt guilty so when she read about the Reverend Harvest asking for the exhumation, she wrote to him. The paper belonged to her mistress — not the artist. Lilian’s married now to a butcher whom she told. His advice was to leave it alone, but he did mention it to a cousin, a constable of Maxwell’s. He thought it too late to do anything — it was two or three years later. No way of telling who the dead girl was by then, but when he heard Maxwell was looking for a Lilian in connection with a girl drowned in 1846, he told Maxwell who went to find her.’
‘What about the mysterious Isabella?’
‘She didn’t know the name, but a woman did call occasionally —’
Dickens looked at him eagerly. ‘Description?’
‘You’ll hardly believe this.’
‘Samivel, I can believe anything about this case.’
‘A woman in black, always wearing a veil. Lilian never knew her name. What say you to that?’
‘Bah, humbug — veiled forsooth. Ghost, was she?’
‘Not much use is it?’
‘None whatsoever — what could she tell about Antonio Ferrara?’
‘The usual — never saw much of him. Just tall, dark and silent.’
‘Jack Marchant is tall and dark, but not the silent type. Remember what the Armwell mews coalman said about the man he met — queer cove, looked right through you.’
‘Mrs Fudge said the so-called Mr Tony was odd, too, and I’ve remembered something else —’ Jones paused as if thinking something out. He closed his eyes, the better to keep Dickens waiting.
‘What? What?’
Jones opened his eyes. ‘Ah, I have it, Mrs Fudge’s laundress, a Mrs — erm — yes, Gambol — she’d received a visit from someone asking a lot o’ question — rum cove, she said — very rum.’
‘Very droll, Samivel, rum cove, forsooth — she was a hideous creature. I thought she was going to strike me with a very large piece of soap like a bit of mantelpiece.’
‘But none of the descriptions sound like Jack Marchant to you?’
Dickens fell silent for a few moments. ‘No, and William Street is not far from his mother’s house in Lodge Road. Surely he wouldn’t masquerade as someone else on her door step, so to speak. She said he’d left home several years ago — no, she didn’t — she said she had not seen him for several years, but still, we’re talking about a man living in William Street way back in 1846 — Jack Marchant would have moved well away, surely.’
‘How old is Jack Marchant?’
‘I don’t know — older than Rolando Sabatini, who is twenty-one or two — twenty-five, perhaps. Mrs Marchant said that her relationship with Sir Neptune was a boy and girl romance. Perhaps she had a child then. I assumed her son was born after her marriage and Sir Neptune’s, but perhaps not. Say she was eighteen. She would be about forty-three now and Sir Neptune — I don’t know —’
‘I’ll have a look in the baronetage.’ Jones went to a shelf where he kept all sorts of handy volumes: the Royal Blue Book, the Post Office Directories, mapbooks of London, Taylor’s Medical Jurisprudence — all the things that might be useful to a policeman in search of information.
‘Faith Marmaduke; Fakenham, Earl of; Falmouth, Marquis of; Fane, Sir Neptune, born 1807 — forty-three.’
‘Jack Marchant could have been in Italy in 1843. He’d have been eighteen then. Susan Harvest was eighteen… He’d have been twenty when Flora Castle died. No, I can’t believe it. Oh, and Mrs Marchant, what a tragedy for her if…’
‘Let’s not rush at it. I need to find out about him — where he was in those ye
ars. That will clear it all up. I shall have to go to his mother — supposing she knows where he was.’
‘And you can find out if he was in Italy — in Ferrara. Anyway, he’s not —’
‘What? You’ve gone quite pale.’
‘I was going to say that he is not an artist — but on that note he sent me, he’d drawn the outline of a bird. A magpie. It was very clever.’
‘Just a sketch?’
‘Yes, but I’ve remembered something else. When I was at Mrs Marchant’s I looked at some paintings in the hall. Just landscapes of Italy — not portraits. Rolando’s father was a portrait artist. I am not saying they are Jack Marchant’s, but —’
‘I’ll find out.’
‘This is very dreadful, Sam. I have betrayed her now.’
‘But he would have come to you because of Rolando, anyway. Pryor told Rolando about you. Nothing to do with his mother. Now Jack Marchant is missing and I have no choice but to question her and Rolando. I will be very careful — I will make no accusation, you can be sure of that.’
‘I know you will — it’s surely in Jack’s favour that he took me to Rolando, and, remember, Jack told me about Jianna. Why should he tell me if he has killed her?’
‘That’s reasonable… I’ll bet he’s gone chasing around in the hope of finding her. He’ll think he can do better than the police can — he’s lived so long outside the law. And he might have more chance of finding her in that warren of alleys. He might have remembered something about her, someone she knew — she can’t have materialised out of thin air to go and live with him.’
‘Artist’s model — I thought when I met her that she was like a girl in a painting. Jack Marchant said she worked as an artist’s model before. He is a young fool — why didn’t he stop to think?’
‘That sort never do.’
‘Give me that painting we found in the mews at Amwell Street — that reminds me. What about Violet Pout in St John’s Wood? Not the same house, surely?’
‘No, it was sold in 1847. Ferrara — or whoever he was, must have moved on. What do you want with the painting?’
‘To take it to an artist I know — where I should have taken it after we found it.’
‘Who?’
Dickens was at the door already. ‘Mr Stanfield at The Greenhill.’
39: The Mourning Girl
‘Hampstead, Hob, and hasty.’
Hob, the cabman in his thick-caped coat was lounging against his cab in deep conversation with the waterman while Bob, his horse, was munching stolidly away in his nose-bag. A pail of water stood ready. Job Grime, the waterman, greeted Dickens with a wave. A little, wiry man — he might be any age from thirty to sixty — wearing, as was his custom, an assortment of torn coats cleverly contrived to make up a whole. The bottom layer made the main body, other layers providing successively: two unmatched sleeves, a green cape, a worn velvet collar, the last topped by two mufflers, skilfully arranged so that the top one covered the holes beneath. A leather cap and a pair of fairly decent wellington boots completed this picture of sartorial ingenuity.
‘New boots, Job?’ asked Dickens, remembering Job’s ancient leather ones which he swore fitted his old feet like a pair of old gloves.
‘Tapper Jack’s gone,’ Job said, removing his hat. Tapper was another of the watermen whom Dickens knew from a cab stand at the top of Bow Street.
Dickens removed his top hat. ‘Legacy?’
‘That’s it, sir, an’ the two pails. Jack’s water’s turned off fer good. The widder brought ’em. Nice little body. Needn’t ’ave…’ Job Grime stared into a distance. He was a single gentleman, Dickens knew.
Hob touched his hat — he never took it off as far as Dickens knew. He wondered if Hob’s head might come off with it.
‘Get a move on,’ Hob said to Bob, ‘let’s not keep Mr Dickens waiting.’
The sagacious Bob merely scraped his hoof on the road and continued his dinner. Dickens waited for the magic moment when Bob, having munched his way to the bottom of the bag, would, with a flick of his nose, invert the bag and catch the scattered oats as they came down. He was prepared to wait. Hob was a driver who always contrived, by some supernatural means, to get out of any Gordian knot of the drays, carts, wagons, cabs, coaches and omnibuses which clogged the streets — could turn his cab on a tanner was his boast. He could have made a fortune in the circus. Bob, too — the nose-bag juggler. They’d get to Hampstead quick enough.
‘’Ampstead, yer sed?’ Bob was ready and Hob swung himself up into his seat. Job opened the door for Dickens who passed him a florin.
‘Have a drink on me for Tapper.’
‘Bless yer, sir, I will.’
‘And Mrs Tapper, perhaps?’
Job grinned. Mind, thought Dickens, Tapper had not possessed any teeth. Perhaps Mrs Tapper would quite like the few that Job had, despite their likeness to Bob’s similarly brown ones.
‘The Green Hill, Mr Stansfield’s house, Hob,’ Dickens instructed as he got in.
Clarkson Stanfield, Dickens’s old friend, was a marine painter, but he had been once chief scene painter at Drury Lane. Admittedly, it was way back in 1834, but he had designed and painted the scenery for Macready’s Drury Lane Macbeth a few years ago. More than that he was a member of the Royal Academy and had been President of the British Institute of Art. He knew people. He might know something — anything, thought Dickens, like the name Ferrara for example, or Polidori. Not that he believed in that name. Suppose all the names were false.
Suppose, suppose, suppose, the wheels seemed to say, unhelpfully, as the cab rolled away up Tottenham Court Road, across the New Road and into Hampstead Road.
And as he was supposing about false names, he remembered something which turned him suddenly sick. Jack Marchant had told him that he knew nothing of Sir Neptune’s household, but he had stolen the diamonds. How? From where? Had he been in Wisteria Lodge and lied about it? Perhaps it was a half-truth — Jack did not know the members of Sir Neptune’s household, but he had got in — the acrobat that he was — and stolen the jewels. It did not mean he had seduced his half-sister, or that he was a murderer. Dickens could not believe that of him. But that was a detail that he would have to pass on to Sam. Where was the foolish young man? He was making things more complicated.
They passed Euston Station — Jack could be on a train, gone to the North, the South, East or West — come to that so could Ferrara. It was no use thinking that — concentrate on the practical thing like asking Stanny. The cab was moving faster now that they were further north, going past Granby Street where he had gone to school at Wellington House Academy, and then they were into High Street behind which lay Bayham Street where his life in London had begun. There had been fewer streets then and fields beyond them, and he and his sister, Fanny, had run outdoors to see a cab go by — a marvel in those days. And creditors came to demand money for unpaid bills — his father couldn’t keep out of debt even then, but he was there, and he loved his children in his cheerful, improvident way.
Unlike Sir Neptune Fane, whose coldness to his first son had been the wound that had sent him about his vagabond days — but not about murder, he thought. Sir Neptune Fane who might use his daughter’s madness and ruin to garner sympathy. He could more imagine Sir Neptune as the murderer of Violet Pout than Jack Marchant.
Bob was going at a smart trot now, back on Hampstead Road and up Haverstock Hill. The houses and buildings were thinner and they were soon enough bowling into Rosslyn Street where the road forked and led to the Green Hill. Dickens asked Hob to wait. Bob would appreciate the break. There was an inn in Pilgrim’s Lane. Dickens would find him.
But Stanny wasn’t there. So his son, George, told Dickens, but his mother was upstairs with the children — Stanny had twelve children in all, ten by his second wife, Rebecca, who was upstairs. But Dickens hadn’t time for one child, never mind twelve, not even one wife, charming as Rebecca Stanfield was.
‘I can’t, George, I’m pressed
for time, but you can do something for me and look at this.’
George Stanfield, at twenty-two, had already exhibited at the Royal Academy and had drawn the plates from his father’s designs for the illustrations of Dickens’s Pictures from Italy. He might know who had painted this.
‘No face,’ George said as he scrutinised the picture, ‘how odd, and yet the rest is well painted. It is peculiar. It’s the wrong way round — the portraitist sketches in the head and the features of the face first. Here there is just a blank —’ George looked more closely — ‘Not a pencil mark. You wouldn’t finish the dress in all this detail and the background and then paint the face — there has to be softening so that the sitter emerges from the background. It has a Renaissance look. Copy, is it?’
‘I think so. You don’t know who might have painted it?’
‘I’d say someone copying an Italian portrait. Rosetti might know. That hair, it has a look — that red-gold colour. Have you seen Rossetti’s Girlhood of Mary Virgin? It is quite remarkable.’
‘No, I haven’t —’ Dickens was thinking furiously. Obviously not Rossetti — he was far too young — George’s age, but his father was professor of Italian at London University. Mariotti knew him. Oh, Lord, the time he had wasted — he should have — time, time — a thought occurred to him — ‘Your Rossetti, does he use a model called Jianni Rizzo?’
George looked startled, ‘No, I don’t think so, but I know someone who did.’
‘Who?’
‘The sculptor, Cipriani Lloyd, Academician — he did that figure “Grief” in St John’s Wood Church, and a mourning girl in St Marylebone Church — he used Jianna Rizzo.’
St Marylebone Church — opposite York Gate where his own house was. He passed it nearly every day. He had been in dozens of time. And there she had been — waiting for him to see her and recognise her: a mourning girl.
‘Where can I find him?’
‘Avenue Road — it’s the first house you come to where the Finchley Road forks after the Swiss Cottage Tavern. Remote place, really, but a big garden and studio.’