The Lion's Courtship: An Anna Kronberg Mystery

by Annelie Wendeberg

  Mum gazes up into Anna’s face. ‘I was talking to you.’

  ‘I’m tired, Mum.’

  ‘I know. Sit down anyways.’

  So she sits down next to Barry and snatches the smoke from the boy’s hands. ‘Wait until you are ten.’

  ‘Might already be ten, who knows for sure?’ squeaks the boy.

  ‘Then wait until you look like ten,’ she retorts and sticks the cigarette between her lips.

  ‘The obstructions are removed?’ asks Mum.

  ‘Yes, their courses should come naturally now. Both will be bleeding lightly for two or three days.’

  ‘I know, you told me about the bleeding before. I’m not that old.’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe how much the young folk forget. Call for me should their bleeding be heavier than one would expect of a menstruation.’

  Mum waves at her in an I know, for Christ’s sake! way, then holds up the two coins. They glisten in the lantern light. ‘You know that I gave this money to them, so they can give it to you, so you could give it back to me. Sounds quite mad, if you ask me.’

  The money drops into her lap, tinkling with the up and down of Mum’s foot on the spinning wheel’s treadle.

  ‘I perform abortions only under this condition. They pay me for my services, then I pay the madam a week’s boarding fee for each of the girls. Otherwise they’ll take customers too early, will get an infection, and die, because I cannot possibly amputate the lower abdomen!’ Anna almost shouts.

  The risk of infection was great: unwashed cocks, douches prepared with dirty water. She had performed the procedure on a number of St Giles’ prostitutes, and so far, none of them had got ill afterwards. Word was spreading that her abortions were clean — not what many pseudo-midwifes and quack doctors offered.

  ‘I don’t charge a half-sovereign per week!’ huffs Mum indignantly.

  ‘How would I know?’ Anna shrugs and looks at the old woman’s hands, one holding a cloud of wool, the other leading the fine strand of twisted fibre through a metal eye and onto the spinning bobbin.

  ‘You should try this,’ says Mum.

  ‘What? Spinning?’

  ‘Yes. It’s good for you.’

  ‘My apologies, but even I need to sleep once in a while. When I work with a thread, it always involves a bent needle and a copiously bleeding wound.’

  ‘With what did I earn your contempt?’

  Anna squints at her.

  ‘Do you believe I sell the girl’s souls?’ Mum laughs. ‘Go home, child.’

  Gone

  A shimmering skin, cracked at its edges, floats atop the lukewarm brew. Whenever she exhales, her breath brushes across the still surface, rippling the brown film, causing it to flicker in shades of purple and turquoise. She stares down at her hands clasped around the earthen cup, thinking about a man with an orange mane. Frowning, she takes a sip. The bitter tea constricts her throat.

  Her neighbourhood appears empty without the large man in it. Garret had been a constant factor, the rock in the surge who would be there when needed without demands for himself. Almost too easy to ignore.

  The ache that followed his unexplained disappearance astounds her. She must have hurt him badly. Did he fancy me so? she wonders for the hundredth time, then shakes her head. It doesn’t matter, she reminds herself. Whatever Garret’s feelings are for her, she can’t reciprocate them, and certainly can’t reveal her secret to him. It would be like tipping out a bucket of the absurd and mad.

  And yet… Wasn’t it society that never allowed her to be what she is and thus forced her to bend herself almost impossibly, to live with all these lies? Garret would never understand. But would she want to know what he does, when and where he burgled a house? Of course she would. Knowledge is better than ignorance, no matter how terrible the lore. Perhaps she could share the one half of her life with him and keep the rest in the dark.

  ‘Share?’ she wonders aloud, and her flat hand hits the tabletop. What does that entail? Surely he wouldn’t be content with a mere friendship. No need to be naive. The thought of Garret naked, expecting her to be sexually receptive, feels like a punch in her face.

  ‘Bollocks!’ she scolds herself. She told him what had to be said, and his reaction was appropriate and acceptable. He’ll find a good woman. Yet, with him gone, she finds herself missing his humour and happiness, his rough hand holding hers.

  Anna slams her cup down; tea erupts from it and lands on the kinked wood.

  She stands and gazes out of the window. The summer sun has long set. Outlines of rooftops are black against a dark violet. She lets the spilled tea dry on the table and walks over to Garret’s place, knocks on his door, presses her ear against it. If only the silence didn’t hurt so. For a moment, she wishes she knew how to pick his lock so she could find clues to his whereabouts. Frustrated, she kicks at the door and turns to leave.

  ‘What ya doing there?’ a woman calls from the ground floor.

  ‘I’m looking for Garret O’Hare. Have you seen him recently?’

  ‘And who are ya?’

  ‘My name is Anna Kronberg. I’m a nurse. I treated Garret’s wounded leg and he still has my bandages. I need them back. Would you be so forthcoming and unlock his door for me so I can get them?’

  ‘Cunningham’s the name,’ says the woman, grabbing the banister and beginning to heave herself up the stairs. ‘Heard about ya. Yer a good lass. But ya need to use tha’ brain o’ yers. Heard ’bout ya going inter tha’ mad house the ’ther day.’ Tutting and huffing, she reaches the top and, after throwing Anna a stern look, opens the door to Garret’s room.

  Anna’s first glance tells her that Garret hasn’t packed. The coat hangs on its hook, the bed has its crumpled cover, an oily rag adorns the table.

  She walks to the cupboard and opens a drawer, then the next. No lockpicks. But she isn’t sure if he even keeps them here. Nonetheless, she feels cold crawling up her arms. Has Garret gone out to burgle a house and not come back?

  ‘When have you last seen him?’ she asks the woman.

  ‘Bit more than a week ago. ‘E dinna pay his rent.’

  ‘I’ll pay it,’ Anna says automatically.

  A hand shoots out, palm up. The landlady won’t let an opportunity like this pass. A sovereign drops into it; gold falling on wrinkly skin coated with soot and potato peel grime. The shiny thing is instantly hid inside a compacted fist.

  ‘That should suffice for three months,’ Anna guesses aloud and bids her farewell.

  With worry twisting her stomach to a knot, she walks down to the street. Dead or imprisoned, is all she can think. No other explanation presents itself.

  Man in the Mirror

  ‘William,’ his wife cries for the fourth time. ‘Take your toys to your room and go to bed!’ The man hears the rustling of her dress, the clacks of her heels as she walks with swift strides, the whispers exchanged between her and the governess. His fingertips slide along the edge of his collar and fold them down over the cravat. His wife should have done this. He takes the top hat from his manservant’s gloved hands, sets it atop his scalp, and regards himself in the looking glass once more. What he sees is a respectable man who is on his way to the opera. He tries a smile. The corners of his mouth pull up. He tries a bit harder. Now the corners of his eyes crinkle.

  ‘My dear,’ his wife breathes as she appears at his side. He moves his head and graces her with the same smile he had practiced for the mirror. ‘You look very good. Superior. Your ideas will convince your partners, I’m certain.’

  Now he smiles in earnest. How little does she know! He presses her hand softly, lifts it up to his lips, and blows a kiss on her knuckles.

  The manservant accompanies him to the waiting brougham, hands him the walking stick, and says, ‘I wish you a pleasant evening, sir.’

  He ignores the man. The door is being closed and the horses set the carriage in motion. Soon, he thinks. Soon.

  His driver stops at the marble stairs — three marb
le pillars carry a marble entrance. The carriage door opens; the coachman keeps his head bowed while his master alights.

  He tugs at his gloves, fits them neatly in between each finger, then taps his stick on the pavement and climbs the stairs to the grand building.

  A mass of people are streaming through the entrance doors, but the chatter doesn’t reach his ears. He steps inside, nods at a few acquaintances while pretending to look for someone in particular. He walks to the lavatory and locks himself into one of the stalls. As soon as the first notes of La Gioconda trickle through the walls, he exits the building, sneaks past his waiting driver, and calls a cab. ‘George Street, St Giles. Make haste!’

  Three days have passed since her visit to Garret’s abandoned room. Every afternoon now, she returns from Guy’s earlier than usual, only to find St Giles a bit emptier, a bit less of a home.

  She walks the streets, sometimes with Barry, sometimes alone. Often, her fruitless searches for information on Garret’s whereabouts are interrupted by children with bleeding knees or infected cuts, or by adults with beaten-up faces, fractured limbs, or knife wounds.

  The summer is growing hotter and germs are replicating eagerly in open wounds and on sweaty skin. All the while, the wet rattling of consumptive coughs is growing less urgent.

  Tonight she walks without Barry, her feet leading her towards Clark’s Mews. A string of thoughts niggle in the back of her mind. Was it pure coincidence that no one knew where Garret was and that, at the same time, the knife-man and Poppy seemed to have disappeared without a trace?

  Certainly, Poppy’s disappearance might be unconnected to Garret’s and the knife-man’s. She might have left St Giles or London all together. With a mother who had sold her to one of the most wretched brothels in the city, one can expect the girl to be street-savvy enough to survive. She must have grown up in, and hence, be used to, extreme poverty. Perhaps her mother was a prostitute, or on the brink of prostitution. That the girl is helpless, or weighed down by narrow-minded moral so as to jump off a bridge and drown herself in the river, is unlikely. But no matter how much Anna theorises, the many possibilities of Poppy’s whereabouts don’t narrow down to only one, don’t point her to one destination, don’t allow her to find the girl and learn what had happened.

  For Anna, the delicate balance of her identity safely hidden in the slums, and of the constant threat to her health and wellbeing in this gritty rookery, now begin to tip towards the unfavourable. Without Garret, she feels more prone to disappear in the maze of dark alleys and filthy corners. All that’s needed is a couple of newcomer garroters who don’t know she’s St Giles’ only health insurance.

  On her search for her friend, a few people told her that he might have been caught burgling. She had thought of that earlier, but found no way to prove or disprove this theory. Theoretically, she can make an enquiry at the criminal court or at the police main quarters. Practically, she can’t. She has a German accent and no papers that can prove her identity. Using her male identity is out of the question. Anything connecting Dr Anton Kronberg to St Giles can eventually land her in prison. Tomorrow, she decides, tomorrow I’ll pay someone to go the Central Criminal Court for me.

  The disappearance of the knife-man, though, seems entirely unexplainable. But what should she do once she meets him? Politely ask him questions on Poppy’s whereabouts? How laughable!

  She groans and comes to a sudden halt, feeling strangely too hot. Her skin is itching, her thoughts seem sluggish.

  Her gaze rests on a billboard. Her eyes don’t take in the letters or the illustration. She imagines herself emerging from behind the too-small hiding place, her privates burning from overuse, a customer throwing a coin at her feet, and she picking it up eagerly. Will she end up like this, once someone discovers what she does for a living?

  Anna shakes her head and rakes her fingers through her hair. Her mind has a tendency to take her onto a too-wild ride, no matter how much it reflects on reality. She wonders what’s wrong with her today. These useless thoughts don’t get her anywhere but too close to fear and despair. Prickling runs down her body. Might have caught the latest summer cold, she thinks when she steps around a corner and a knife meets her throat.

  ‘Good evening.’ A whisper close to her ear. A hand curls around her elbow. She’s pushed through a doorway and into a corridor. The house smells of mould and of excrements from rats and humans.

  It’s so dark she cannot see more than a silhouette. The man is of normal build, and a few inches taller than she. His voice is softer and higher than that of the drunkards frequenting the establishments in Clark’s Mews. She detects the odour of expensive soap and the scent of virgin silk and wool — not the yarn produced by tearing up tattered remnants of clothes, then spinning the shreds to weave them into “new” fabric. The man in front of her smells of money. Lots of it.

  Apparently by accident, his hand brushes over her left forearm and finds the outlines of her small jackknife. ‘What is this?’ he asks, his fingers probing her sleeve and extracting the tickler.

  With a snort of contempt, he drops it to the ground, then slips his hand over her other arm, her stomach and waist, but no more weapons are to be found. ‘I heard you are looking for me. This is most unusual, don’t you think?’

  She doesn’t answer. Her knees and thighs are pressing together in reflex.

  ‘I have been informed that a woman is making enquiries about me. It’s usually I who chooses the women. Now it appears as though a woman picked me. I’m honoured,’ he continues. The tip of his knife is resting where her pulse drums against her skin. Her lower abdomen contracts. ‘But don’t you think your behaviour inappropriate?’

  ‘What?’ she asks, for nothing else takes shape in her mind. She’s too busy analysing as much as she can. His high, white collar shows dimly in the dark — the top hat, the light coat, the silvery glint of his walking stick’s knob.

  The back of his hand strikes her across her cheek. A warning that brings a sting, but is, in itself, harmless. The knife makes contact again. ‘Say,’ he begins and probes between her legs, ‘you wouldn’t be bleeding, would you?’

  ‘I rarely do,’ she answers and her silly mind begins calculating when her last menstruation was. About a year ago. She had been ill then.

  ‘Very unfortunate.’ He drops his hand and wipes it on the front of her dress. ‘What do you want from me, then? You don’t appear to be a prostitute. Not even a runaway girl looking for adventures with an experienced man.’

  ‘I want to know what happened to the girl. Poppy is her name. The one whose face you cut open.’

  ‘Of course.’ He chuckles. The knife loses contact. Only a moment later, he presses it against her cheek just underneath her left eye. ‘I will be patient with you and teach you a lesson. Let’s call it “Reality.” Are you listening?’ He reduces his voice to a soft whisper.

  Anna breathes, ‘Yes,’ for nodding would drive the blade into her eye.

  ‘Excellent. Not a single soul wishes to know what happens to whores. When they disappear, most people are grateful. Not I, mind you. But people who ask too many questions, people like you, are threatening the foundation of our modern society. Do you know why?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You see, men are unable to control their animalistic urges. It is common knowledge. So what are we to do, once we are married? For the modest woman seldom desires sexual gratification. She submits to her husband for the desire of maternity and to please him. In the soul of a good woman, there is no space for sexual indulgence. She knows little of the darker, deeper desires of many a man. In order to calm man’s dark side, he must use whores. It is in the nature of man, and that is what whores are for — to satiate. It is like everything in life. There are the ones who deserve to be served, and the ones who serve. But I wonder… Perhaps, you wish to satiate my animalistic urges? My control of them might be slipping any moment now.’ Spite sharpens his voice, and the knife’s tip is pressing hard against her skin. />
  ‘No,’ croaks up Anna’s throat.

  ‘Very well, then. I trust you learnt your lesson tonight. If not, one more meeting might be necessary. But it won’t be as pleasant as this one. Have a good night.’

  The knife disappears, and with it, the man. She slumps forward and retches. Bile hits the pavement.

  Newgate

  Thirty, echoes in Garret’s skull. Thirty. The word still carries the magistrate’s satisfied lilt.

  He had felt very small in Old Bailey’s Central Criminal Court. The charges against him were laughable. The police soon noticed that they had caught the wrong man, for he didn’t look like the pickpocket they had been chasing — a skinny boy with hair as black as a raven’s feathers. Yet, the police needed to catch someone, and this was Garret’s misfortune.

  He would have been released at once if not for the bundle of burglar equipment and the two pieces of liver stuffed with opium.

  Garret had insisted that he found both at the corner of High Holborn and Broad Street. He told the magistrate how lucky he felt that the police caught him. He would have eaten the liver and would have surely died of opium poisoning. He had even folded his large hands to appear humble. But it hadn’t helped much. He looked like the brute he was.

  Lacking solid evidence, they couldn’t detain him for very long. Owing to his build, however, his roots in St Giles, and the incriminating accessories, the magistrate decided that some punishment would only do Garret good.

  ‘O’Hare!’ calls the warden, rattling a large ring full of keys, most of which have lost their lock long ago. Their only purpose is to impress. Here in Newgate Prison, the man with the keys is king.

  Garret is led through a dingy corridor out towards the gallows. The thief holds his head high, taking in all details one last time: the moisture dripping down the vaulted ceiling, the green slime growing on cold stones, the echo of his footfall, the murmurs, shouts, and cackles of his fellow prisoners. The light at the end of the corridor is blinding, a hooded figure cuts through its centre, black on white — the executioner.