by J C Briggs
‘One of the servants failed to lock the room. She came to my bedroom and held the candle to my face and her hand over my mouth — she was so strong. She burnt me. A servant heard my screams. Afterwards, my father said she had drowned when she was sleepwalking but there was no funeral. Later, I heard the servants talking. They said she was mad. She was locked away forever, they said… I told Anthony that she was dead, but he found out. I cared for him — he walked in his sleep, but I locked him in and stayed with him and gave him laudanum. I did not tell my father — Anthony would have been taken away like my mother. I had no one else.
‘But I lost him when he was sent to school — I lost him…’ She wept again.
Dickens was conscious of the time passing and Jones waiting. There would be time after they had found him and Jianna — time then to piece it all together.
‘Where is he?’
‘He said he would come here — that he was ill, that he needed me to — to — protect him. He said I must not go to his house — what has he done — what has he done?’ She struck her gloved hand on her knee and rocked back and forth. There was no time.
‘I must find him — I will bring him to you. Only tell me where he is.’
Just at that moment there was the dreadful thump of the knocker on the door, followed by two more. Jones nearly dropped the lamp, Rogers jumped and inside the room the woman dropped the brandy cup as she started up. Dickens caught hold of her. Thank God Jones and Rogers were in the hall. It had sounded like the knocking of a madman — who the devil?
The door was opening, a voice shouting urgently, ‘Miss Ferrars! Miss Ferrars! I know you’re there.’ The door banged shut and the indignant voice said, ‘’Oo the dickens are you two?’
Dickens felt weak at the knees, but he held onto the woman. He heard Jones’s voice calmly addressing the irate female — for it was another woman’s voice he had heard.
‘I am Superintendent Jones of Bow Street —’
He was cut off by the woman’s cry, ‘Oh, gawd, ’e ain’t ere, is ’e?’
‘Who?’
‘Mr Ant’ny — she’s bin waitin’ fer ’im — I knew she’d come ’ere. Let me through.’
The door burst open and Dickens saw a stout woman wearing an immensely large bonnet and wielding an umbrella. She barrelled into the room with a cry of, ’Miss Ferrars! Come away. ’E ain’t comin ’ere. It’s best ter wait at ’ome — come away.’ The she seemed to realise Dickens and asked belligerently, ‘’Oo are you?’
Dickens couldn’t stop himself, ‘Mr Dickens, madam.’ Then he felt a fool.
‘Very clever, I’m sure. Don’t tell me then. I don’t care — just leave my poor lady alone.’
‘I’m not —’ no point in explaining — ‘do you know where Mr Ferrars is?’
‘Wot’s it ter you, Mr — whatever yer name is?’
Jones came in. ‘I need to know, madam. Come into the hall. Miss Ferrars is quite safe.’
Hearing the command in the policeman’s voice, the stout woman obeyed and went out.
‘Who is that man?’ Miss Ferrars asked.
‘He is a friend — a policeman. He needs to find Anthony and Miss Rizzo.’
Isabella Ferrars turned her ravaged face to Dickens. ‘Susan committed suicide. Anthony told me. It wasn’t his fault. He needs me. He is so unhappy. The girl in Venice — it was an accident — he didn’t mean it. He wouldn’t harm —’ she sat down and wept again.
She knew enough, thought Dickens, enough to be terrified at the word “strangled” and she thought he had come as an avenger from Venice. She was too distraught to answer anything more.
Jones came back in with the now subdued stout woman — not so subdued that she did not elbow Dickens out of the way to put her arms around Isabella Ferrars and whisper, ‘There, there, miss, come away now. Let’s go home. There, there.’
Jones moved Dickens away to the door. ‘She is Mrs Slack, Miss Ferrars’s housekeeper. They used to live here. Miss Ferrars is not a widow, obviously. Rogers has gone to get a cab — he will take them home and stay with them until he hears from me.’
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘I have an address.’
He hears an owl hooting in the woods. He thinks of the ghostly shape he has seen floating in the trees. There are only the birds and he saw a fox once, its ears pricked and its coat a flash of russet. It had gazed at him for a few seconds. Then it had turned and trotted away on silent feet. No one comes here. There is only Caterina and himself.
He looks down at her unmoving face and strokes the red-gold hair. ‘Caterina,’ he whispers, ‘Caterina.’ But she does not answer. She does not wake. She will. She will come back to him. The jewelled cross has slipped from her hands. He crosses the room to look at his work. She does not seem to be perfect now. Her eyes are closed but her mouth is open — she looks almost ugly. Her lips have lost their fullness and her skin, that rosy flush on her face seems to have turned to wax and she is so cold and so still. She is his masterpiece — why is it changed so? But he can put it right. She can be restored.
He tries to rearrange her hands, but they are stiff and hard. He pulls the rosary tighter so that the cross rests on her breast — a memory comes to him, a memory of a girl who had worn a mask, whose eyes had gazed into his and laughed at his costume. ‘You are Death,’ she had said, ‘come to take me.’ And she had laughed again, a silvery peal of laughter. She had taken his hand and they had gone down the stairs away from the palazzo, away from the party, into the silent streets.
She had run ahead of him, her laughter trailing behind her like notes of music. He saw her pause under a lamp. Her dress looked green and her red-gold hair flew out, catching the light. Then she was gone into darkness, but he heard her feet running. He followed and she was waiting for him under another lamp by a canal — the one where the bridge was topped with iron. He caught up with her. She was breathless after her dash, but her smile was beautiful. She caught his hands in his. ‘Ah, Death,’ she said, ‘let me see your face,’ and she reached up a hand to take away the mask of the skull which he had worn for the festivity.
‘You first,’ he had said, releasing her hand so that she could take off her mask. She took it off and shook out her shining hair. Then she looked up at him, her dark eyes glittering in delight and her round face dimpled with laughter. There was a jewelled cross at her neck. ‘Death meet the Countess — that is who I am tonight — a noble lady — just for one night.’ She curtseyed.
She was not beautiful — he remembers that. She had a coarse skin and he had seen that her white teeth had been an illusion — only a few of her teeth remained. She had put up her arms to kiss him. Her breath was foul. He had reached out for the rosary. A single gondola had glided by, just a shadow on the water. The lamp had gone out.
He shakes his head — the memory vanishes. He looks at his love. Why is she so changed? He had achieved the perfection of his art. Why can it not remain? He lights fresh candles. He weeps to see how altered she is — so cold, so pale. He takes his palette and puts his brush in the carmine red and mixes it with white. The colour becomes a rosy blush. He begins to paint the waxen face. His final work.
43: Ordeal by Touch
It wasn’t far. Dickens and Jones could have walked from South Terrace in half an hour or so. But Jones was cautious. They would go to the Police Station at Marylebone Lane. They’d find a cab on Park Road which would take them there in ten minutes. Time to collect a couple of constables and take the police van to Keeper’s Cottage. They would need to lock him in one of the cells in the van. The cottage, according to Mrs Slack, was located in the woods surrounding Westbourne House just off the Harrow Road — just north of the Regent’s Canal. Inspector Day knew exactly where it was. They could be there in the same time.
It was more remote than Ivy Cottage. They left the van and the driver on the rutted road that led up to the woods and then took a path. The woods were dark, but there was an overgrown path to the house. An
owl hooted — the fatal bellman which gave the stern’st goodnight. A portent, Dickens thought, as if they needed one. He saw the white shape drift through the trees, but there was no other sign of life. Only the moon, glimpsed occasionally through the canopy of trees, looking down at them like an anguished face.
Jones had told the constables to be as quiet as possible. He did not even know if Anthony Ferrars would be there, but if he was, Jones judged that he must be taken by surprise. If he were warned of their approach he might escape, or he might kill the girl. If he had not done so already. He had not much hope from what he had heard in Ivy Cottage — the man was possibly mad and that perhaps made him dangerous. Jones fingered the flintlock pistol which he had borrowed from Inspector Day — just a precaution.
The gate was open and they looked up at the hidden house. There was faint light coming from one of the rooms at the top of the house. Someone was there. He directed the slighter of the two constables to go up to the front door. It was locked. He signalled to the man to stay where he was. He and Dickens and the other policeman with his bull’s eye lamp went round the back. Here the trees grew right up to the house. There was no back garden and they pushed through the trees to see if they could find a back door. Jones lit the lamp that Rogers had given him.
In the light of the lamps they could see that this was the door that had been used to go in and out of the house. There were footprints on the damp ground — a man’s footprints. Very slowly and very carefully, Jones turned the handle and pushed at the door. The lamplight showed that there was a pantry and beyond that another room in darkness. They waited, but there was no sound but the occasional drip of water. The time seemed interminable between each drip which marked each long … minute, thought Dickens, like a clock run slow, but still Jones waited.
Jones moved to the entrance to the other room. Dickens followed and he and the constable stood in the pantry and then they followed Jones into the farther room from which a staircase led upstairs. Jones indicated to the constable that he should wait by the door into the pantry. Then he and Dickens crept up the stairs, holding on to the banister rail and testing each step as they went. On the landing they waited again, but there was no sound. There only the faint edge of light seen under a door — the door of the room they had seen from outside.
They listened outside the door. The silence was profound. They hardly dared breathe. Dickens felt a sense of dread. This was the end of it, he was sure. He knew in his heart that Jianna Rizzo was dead. The silence told that. Perhaps she lay even now in the Regent’s Canal, taken through those woods in the dead of night, her slender neck circled by a jewelled chain which had killed her. But the light told, surely, that someone was inside that room. Perhaps Anthony Ferrars was dead by his own hand.
As if he could bear it no longer, Jones seized the door handle and pushed, taking the pistol from his pocket.
The painter did not turn. He stood with his palette in his hand, looking at the figure on the bed. They stepped into the room. Dickens looked, too. He could not work out what it was. A waxwork figure? A life-sized doll? He saw the red-gold hair and the green velvet, but the face was a horror — a painted face, unreal and grotesque. He and Jones stood frozen to the spot and watched the painter take his brush and bend over the figure.
‘Mr Ferrars!’ Jones’s voice was loud and commanding.
The painter turned round and looked at them, his eyes blank. He simply stared. Then he turned away and made to paint again. The red paint dripped from the brush.
Jones was about to move, but Dickens stepped forward and took the brush from him. ‘Your work is finished, Mr Ferrars.’
Ferrars looked at him and smiled. ‘You are right, sir. It is beautiful, is it not?’
Dickens looked down. He understood then. Underneath the paint was the dead face of Jianna Rizzo. ‘Yes, it is, but you should come with us now, sir. Your sister, Isabella, sent us. She would like to see you. She said you promised to go to her.’
‘Isabella? Did I? I don’t remember, but I cannot leave Caterina here alone. I have waited so long for her.’
‘I will take care of her until you can come back. She will be safe with me.’
Dickens took the palette from him. He guided him towards Jones who had pocketed the pistol. Anthony Ferrars did not resist.
Jones led him away. Dickens heard them go down the stairs. Anthony Ferrars said nothing, but he heard Jones address the constable and then he heard the front door open and more hurried words. Then Jones came back upstairs.
‘I’ve had to handcuff him. I’m afraid that he will come to and realise what’s happening. I need to get him to Bow Street and I need to get a doctor.’
Dickens nodded. ‘I’ll stay with her.’
‘An hour or so. You’ll be all right?’
‘She should not be left alone.’
‘I’ll leave one of the constables outside.’
Dickens sat waiting with the dead girl in the candlelit room. He could hardly bear to look at her. He remembered her in Magpie’s lodgings in her velvet dress. She had looked like a girl in a painting. How odd that he had thought that without knowing anything of the painting he had carried about with him. He had left it at Ivy Cottage — the portrait without a face.
He looked at her then. There was something grotesque about what Anthony Ferrars had done to her face. The pink painted on the cheeks was crude and clumsy, barely covering the waxen pallor. Red paint had dripped onto her eyes as if she were weeping blood. He thought of his friend, Daniel Maclise’s painting, Ordeal by Touch — the old belief that if the murderer touched the body of the victim it would bleed. He saw the red circle round her neck and the cross on her breast — full circle.
And the lips were more horrible still — he had painted a pair of lips over the dead ones. It looked like a clown’s face. He had made her ugly. Where was his fine brushwork now?
He looked round the room. There was water in a jug on the table and some rags beside it. He found the cleanest and dipped it into the water. Then he set about gently cleaning the dead face.
PART III: THE PLEA OF INSANITY
44: The Inquest and Trial
The Morning Chronicle, Monday December 10th
Yesterday afternoon a very respectable jury was summoned to attend before Mr Box, the coroner for Marylebone.
Mr Box explained that the purpose of the inquest was to establish the cause of death and the circumstances that surrounded the event. This court was not the proper tribunal in which to establish any person’s guilt or innocence. If the evidence were sufficient to direct suspicion on any party then he the coroner would send the accused before another tribunal where ample opportunity would be afforded the accused to establish his moral innocence. That would be the proper tribunal to institute the inquiry as to the sanity or insanity of the accused. The question at present would be whether or not after hearing the evidence, there should appear to the jury a prima facie case made out sufficiently strong against any party to induce the said jury to send the party before another tribunal.
At the mention of the question of insanity, much interest was felt in the young man brought before the court. According to the evidence put forward by Superintendent Samuel Jones of Bow Street, this young man, Anthony Ferrars, an artist, had been found with the body of the deceased young woman, Miss Rizzo. He had made no confession nor, indeed, had he spoken of her death. He had only asked where was Caterina? The name, according to Superintendent Jones, referred to a young woman he believed had died in Ferrara, Italy. Enquiries were being made in Italy about this young woman. Superintendent Jones had called in two doctors and on their recommendation the young man had been transferred to the Bethlehem Asylum.
Constable Pickering (D Division) offered his evidence as to the discovery of Mr Ferrars at a cottage in the woods by Westbourne Manor House. There was no evidence of any other person’s presence in the cottage. He had guarded the back door. No other person had entered or left during his watch. Constable Weeks (D
Division) had been detailed by Superintendent Jones to keep watch at the front of the cottage. No other person had entered or left.
Inspector Day gave evidence that he and various other men of D Division had searched the premises and the woods nearby. There was no evidence of any other person residing at the cottage other than Mr Ferrars and the deceased.
Much sensation was caused by the appearance, as a witness, the celebrated author, Mr Charles Dickens, who, our readers will no doubt recall, was an important witness at the inquest on the death of a doctor last year. Mr Dickens’s interest in this case was explained. He had been tasked to discover the whereabouts of a young woman, Miss Violet Pout, formerly a governess in the household of Sir Neptune Fane, Member of Parliament for the Chelsea District. This young woman was god-daughter to Mrs Dickens’s personal maid. Mr Dickens’s enquiries led him to Mr Ferrars. Superintendent Jones had accompanied him to the cottage in the woods.
Further evidence was put forward by Superintendent Jones, who told the coroner of the death by strangling of Miss Pout and her servant, Jemima Curd, who had also once been in the employ of Sir Neptune Fane. There was evidence that both these young women had resided in a house occupied by Mr Ferrars in Clerkenwell. The bones of another young woman, Miss Flora Lambert, had been found in the water tank of a house in South Crescent. She was believed to be known to the accused. The inquests on those deaths had been adjourned pending further enquiries by the police.