The Mangle Street Murders

by M. R. C. Kasasian

  Inspector Pound shrugged. ‘The sewer press claimed that was smeared on the walls in Slurry Street, but I never saw it.’

  ‘But it seems such an unlikely story to make up,’ I said. ‘Who would believe it?’

  ‘If a story is unlikely, then it is unlikely to be true,’ Inspector Pound said. ‘Surely even a girl can see the sense of that.’

  ‘If a story is unlikely to be made up, then it is likely to be true,’ I said. ‘Surely even a man can grasp that logic.’

  The inspector puffed and said, ‘You should hear some of the tales we get. We had a man yesterday who said that all the stolen goods in his cellar were put there by a man from the moon. An Italian is a little easier to believe than that.’

  Sidney Grice waved his hand irritably and said, ‘Next we are expected to believe that he sat in an uncomfortable chair fast asleep while this fellow opened his back door.’

  ‘Why the back door?’ Inspector Pound asked.

  ‘Because there are muddy footprints in the yard to the door, which stop at the threshold, and because he claims that the shop bell only sounded once,’ Sidney Grice said. ‘So this fabulous Italian let a cold draught and the outside noise in, took off his boots, crept past, opened a squeaky door and murdered Sarah Ashby without Mr Ashby even stirring.’

  ‘If he were lying, surely he would have pretended to be a heavy sleeper,’ I said.

  ‘His mother-in-law had already gainsaid him,’ Sidney Grice said, ‘and, though he could not have known that, he knew she would in court. Also, the match girl, who was well-disposed to Ashby and ill-disposed to his wife and so may be tempted to corroborate his story, has already told us that nobody entered or left the shop for some hours before he raised the alarm.’

  ‘And why would his wife be in her bare feet if she were working in the shop?’ Inspector Pound said.

  ‘Precisely.’ Sidney Grice jabbed the air with his forefinger. ‘I have examined her feet and, although she had a bruise, they were clean and soft with no splinters in them. The shop floor is rough and unplaned.’

  ‘But he is so gentle,’ I said.

  ‘He was a soldier,’ my guardian reminded me. ‘Soldiers shoot and bayonet people for a living. How gentle an occupation is that?’

  ‘I still do not believe it.’

  ‘There are a few loose ends,’ Sidney Grice said, ‘but I have no doubt that I shall be able to tie them together. Why do you think I offered the prisoner my mug of tea?’

  ‘Because you did not like it,’ I answered.

  ‘Because I never intended to drink it,’ he continued. ‘I noticed that his left hand was more developed than the right, but I needed to be sure. A left-handed man will shake hands with his right. He may even have been bullied at school to hold a pen with his right and at home to eat right-handedly, but he will invariably pick up a cup or glass with his left, just as William Ashby did repeatedly. You will remember, Miss Middleton, how I observed from the fatal wound that the murderer was left-handed.’

  ‘But why would he kill her?’ I asked, and knew immediately what the answer would be.

  ‘For the insurance,’ Inspector Pound explained patiently. ‘A hundred pounds is no mean sum of money. I have never had so much all at once in all my life, and I doubt he makes that much in four or five years.’

  ‘And we already know they argued over trivial things such as the match girl taking shelter,’ Sidney Grice said. ‘I am sure, if we ask the neighbours, we will find they argued about more than that. He admitted himself that they quarrelled about her burning that paper. Trivial things mount up in a marriage and, when added to a huge financial incentive, it does not take much of a spark to set things off. He was not to know that the policy was worthless.’

  ‘But he showed no emotion when he found out that he had committed the murder with no possibility of profiting from it, even if he escapes the hangman,’ I said.

  A pigeon struck the window and fell away.

  ‘He’s a cool one. I will grant you that.’ The inspector picked an old apple core off his desk and tossed it to the bin, where it bounced off the rim on to the floor.

  ‘And why put the murder weapon back on public display?’ I asked.

  ‘Perhaps he intended to dispose of the knife elsewhere but found his exit blocked by the sewage,’ Sidney Grice said, ‘which would explain the blood on the gate handle and the footprints going back to the house, and the fact that he had taken his boots off when he got to the house. You remember I asked to see them. They were quite clean. Probably he used some sheets of paper to wipe them and the knife and put the paper in the fire, but there was still hardened mud in the cleats of the soles. Besides, where better to hide a knife than in a cabinet of knives? If it had been found stuck down the back of a cupboard, it would instantly have raised suspicion.’

  ‘I thought you said he argued with his wife about burning the paper,’ I said.

  ‘There’s the cleverness of the man,’ Inspector Pound said. ‘He told us they had argued about that but they probably argued about something else. I, for example, am always having to scold my sister for her poor housekeeping.’

  ‘I am still not convinced,’ I told him, and Sidney Grice laughed unpleasantly and said, ‘Fortunately, it is not you we have to convince, Miss Middleton.’

  ‘I understand your reservations.’ Inspector Pound kicked the apple core into a corner. ‘For I had them myself until Mr Grice settled my doubts with his irrefutable arguments. But you have to understand, dear girl, that the erratic fluttering of the feminine heart is no match for the clear logic and penetrating insight of the masculine brain.’

  ‘Thank you for explaining that,’ I said, and the inspector smiled and reached out and, for one awful moment, I thought he was going to pat me on the head.

  ‘That is all right,’ he said and patted me on the head. ‘Let me show you to the door.’ Back in the corridor, he said, ‘You are new to London, are you not, Miss Middleton?’

  ‘Yes. I have lived in many places but never London before.’

  ‘A word to the wise then,’ he said. ‘Watch out for the horses – they bite – and for foreigners.’

  ‘What do they do?’ I asked, but he shook his head and said, ‘I hope you shall never find out. Good day, Miss Middleton.’

  I stood on the pavement while Sidney Grice hailed a series of cabs which all seemed to be occupied, and found myself outside a butcher’s window. The carcass of a piglet hung from a steel hook, skinned and flabby and thick with flies; and a string of rabbits glared glazedly through the smeared glass. Trotters stood in a neat line like second-hand shoes and a cow’s tongue drooped slimily off a shelf. I remembered what my guardian had said about meat, but most of all I remembered the field station and the agonies of the mutilated, and the man made monstrous because he had no face.

  Sidney Grice had fallen into an argument with a Chinaman over who had seen a hansom first, and while they quarrelled two young men jumped in and it drove off with the Chinaman running after it. I put out my hand and an empty hansom stopped.

  ‘125 Gower Street, please.’

  ‘Off to see Sidney Grice, are you?’ the driver called over his shoulder. ‘’E lives there, ’e does. Queer cove by all accounts.’

  With a flick of the whip we were off. On the way home we passed the New Gloucester Theatre. The doors were closed as one would expect in the afternoon, but there was a sign on the door Rigoletto Performance Cancelled.

  ‘You see, March,’ my guardian said and laughed. ‘You can never find an Italian when you want one.’ And he reached over to pat my hand.

  17

  The Duke’s Head

  The Duke of Marlborough’s head had been knocked off and his horse was chipped, presumably by children throwing stones.

  ‘A word of warning,’ Sidney Grice shouted over the rumble of a passing coal wagon. ‘There will be men in there whose judgement has been impaired by the overconsumption of alcohol. You may well find things a little lively.’

&
nbsp; He shooed a balding mongrel away with his cane.

  ‘It seems peaceful enough,’ I said and, indeed, the saloon was almost deserted. Two old men sat playing a game with torn cards and another stood at the bar looking into his empty beer glass.

  The barman was rolling a cigarette and looked up angrily as we approached.

  ‘Can’t you read?’ he asked.

  ‘How kind of you to enquire,’ Sidney Grice said, ‘but, since this is not a lending library, I cannot see why my literacy is of any concern to you.’

  ‘No women.’ The barman scooped up two used tankards and put them on the shelf behind him. ‘That’s what it says on the door.’

  ‘Why, I thought that was a complaint and I was trying to rectify it.’ Sidney Grice ran his finger along the brass bar-rail.

  ‘I don’t like clever jacks and I don’t like women. Get out, both of you.’ The barman pointed to the door.

  A large wet brown fungus was growing from the side of his nose and up under his right eye, almost obscuring it. I searched through my handbag.

  ‘Do you know what this is?’ I asked and the barman snatched it from me.

  ‘A railway ticket,’ he said. ‘And you’d better ’urry ’cause it’s dated last week. Out.’

  Sidney Grice reached into the pocket of his Ulster and asked, ‘Do you know what this is?’

  ‘Half a sov,’ the barman said.

  ‘It is indeed,’ Sidney Grice said, ‘and I should like to give it to you.’

  ‘What’s stopping you?’ The barman divided a pile of half-smoked scrapings with a rusty knife.

  ‘Your surly attitude.’ Sidney Grice wiped his finger on a handkerchief. ‘And the fact that you have not answered my questions yet.’

  ‘The fact is you ’aven’t asked any yet.’ The barman twisted some orange shreds into a yellowed scrap of newspaper.

  ‘William Ashby.’

  ‘The Mangle Street Murderer.’ The barman nodded. ‘I know you now. You’re posh coves in search of a thrill, the sort what slips the caretaker half a crown to nose around the scene and look at the blood and shudder and go ’ome for muffins in front of the fire. You make me sick, your sort.’

  ‘Did you know him?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ the barman said. ‘I don’t believe ’e ever set foot in ’ere. I wish he ’ad, then ’arf of Fleet Street would be in ’ere wanting stories and tippling off expenses, and they can tipple for the Empire, those ’acks can. Is that it? Cough up.’

  My guardian held up the coin out of the barman’s reach. ‘You never went to his shop?’

  ‘No, and I’ve answered all your questions so cough up.’

  Sidney Grice slapped the coin on the bar top and said, ‘That was money ill spent. I would have got more from the dog outside.’

  ‘Fleas and distemper for a start,’ I said.

  ‘I know him,’ the old man at the bar said, and Sidney Grice turned.

  Apart from his faded grey and bloodshot eyes, the old man’s face was scarcely visible beneath his thickly matted tobacco-stained beard and enormous tangle of greasy grey hair.

  ‘You do?’ I asked.

  ‘Indeed I do. Nice old boy. His name is Jasper.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The dog, of course.’ The old man scratched himself inside the front of his brown corduroy trousers.

  My guardian snapped, ‘I am not interested in the dog.’

  ‘Yes, you are. I heard you both talking about him.’

  ‘The Lord did not test Job’s patience as he has tested mine.’ Sidney Grice turned away. ‘Come along, Miss Middleton. We are wasting our time with these wretched people in this wretched place.’

  ‘’Ere,’ the barman said. ‘Who and where you calling wretched?’

  Sidney Grice began to tell him, but I was more interested in the old man.

  ‘I hope you do not mind me observing but you seem very well-spoken for a man in your straits,’ I said.

  ‘You may observe what you like if you buy me a pint,’ he said, and I slipped him a shilling.

  ‘That should buy you a few.’

  ‘I was born a toff. Mine was one of the few noble families to stay true to the old faith, but they still managed to come out of the Reformation richer than they went into it. Town houses and country mansions, thousands of acres, armies of servants, the lot.’ The old man slid the coin to the barman, who filled his glass with flat dark stout without pausing in telling my guardian how stuck-up he was. ‘All gone now, though… gone…’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I would sooner drink from a drain,’ Sidney Grice was saying.

  ‘Went into a project for constructing a tunnel all the way from Dover to Calais.’ The old man raised his glass to me. ‘Just imagine being able to set foot in France only two hours after leaving our shores, no matter how the wind might blow, the thunder crack and the sea rage over your head. Put everything I had into that scheme.’

  ‘So what went wrong?’

  The old man drank deep and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

  ‘We had not excavated a hundred yards nor left dry land before the government got wind of it and closed our business down. They seemed to think the Frenchies would be sending their armies through it, though Boney was put under porphyry with pomp long before we had started. We lost every farthing.’

  ‘Come along, Miss Middleton,’ Sidney Grice said.

  ‘Surely a man of your education could find some employment,’ I said, but the old man shook his head and said, ‘Nobody will employ a man who is their better. They feel uncomfortable. And few men are better than I.’

  ‘Have you no friends?’

  ‘I had a hundred,’ he said, ‘whilst I was prosperous.’ He took another draught. ‘But they were gone like seagulls in a storm as my fortune died, leaving only debts in its estate.’

  ‘This is a madhouse,’ Sidney Grice said. ‘No wonder Ashby never set foot in the place.’

  ‘I know him,’ the old man said.

  ‘Do not start that again.’ Sidney Grice chopped the air with the flat of his hand. ‘We are not talking about that verminous mongrel.’

  ‘I was referring to William Ashby.’ The old man drained his pint and slid the glass back to the barman. ‘I know him well.’

  ‘What is your name?’

  The old man straightened and clicked his heels. ‘Sir Randolph Cosmo Napier, at your service.’

  ‘No. Your real name,’ Sidney Grice said.

  ‘Sir Randolph Cosmo Napier,’ the old man said with a slight bow from the waist.

  Sidney Grice peered at him closely.

  ‘Good lord,’ he said. ‘I believe you knew my father.’

  18

  The Man in the Rabbit Skin Coat

  Going to the theatre seemed too trivial an occupation for my guardian but he had been sent two tickets by the playwright, whose lost writing case he had retrieved, and told me that an evening out might improve my humour.

  The play was a comedy, though you would not have known it from Sidney Grice’s pained expression throughout.

  ‘I do not know who committed the greater crime,’ he said as we collected our cloaks, ‘the thief who stole the script or I who returned it.’

  The traffic flowed quite well by London standards and our journey home was uneventful until we got to Sadler Street. ‘On two matters of business,’ my guardian said, ‘Inspector Pound made enquiries of Mrs Dillinger and she told him that she had burnt her son-in-law’s clothing.’

  ‘Can you blame her?’

  There were people shouting in the distance.

  ‘Yes. I find it easy to blame people but I blame the police even more.’ The shouting was getting louder. ‘Also, I have checked with Philby’s Cutlers on Midden Street and they only ever made two of those knives – a special order for William Ashby.’

  ‘So he was telling the truth about that.’

  Sidney Grice tossed his head. ‘The best lie
s are always flavoured with the truth but if the substance is rotten, it will stink no matter how much you try to disguise it.’

  The hansom stopped and Sidney Grice tapped the roof with his cane and called up to the driver, ‘What is the delay?’

  The driver slid open his hatch and glared down at us. ‘Road blocked.’

  ‘Then turn round, man.’

  ‘Can’t back up with that lot behind me,’ the driver said, ‘and there’s no room to turn.’

  ‘Has there been an accident?’

  ‘Trouble,’ the driver said and slammed his hatch shut.

  ‘What sort of trouble?’ I asked and Sidney Grice looked out.

  ‘A crowd,’ he said. ‘They have upturned a cart of barrels and set fire to it at the junction.’

  The hatch slid open.

  ‘My ’orse don’t like it,’ the driver said. We could feel it shifting restlessly and hear its hooves strike the cobbles.

  I leaned out of my side.

  ‘Keep your head in,’ Sidney Grice said.

  ‘I have as much right to look as you.’

  There was a bonfire at the crossroads ahead and only one hansom between it and us. The fire must have been ten feet high, but it was growing by the minute. Men in rags were running out from an alleyway, throwing planks of wood on top, their faces lit crimson then white, then dissolving into the shadows as they ran back again.

  ‘They must have looted a builder’s yard,’ my guardian said.

  I could hear hammering and a squealing wrench and three men appeared carrying a door, which they swung and tossed into the blaze.

  ‘They will have the street on fire at this rate,’ Sidney Grice said. ‘Where are the police? Cosy behind their desks, no doubt.’

  I heard the smashing of glass.

  The driver shouted, ‘You, behind, back your nag up and let us through.’

  ‘Can’t. It’s blocked back to Onion Street,’ the other driver shouted, ‘and there’s more coming up behind that.’

  ‘Lord help us now.’ Sidney Grice half stood to lean out further. ‘They have broken into a vintner’s. It is difficult to reason with any mob, but one with wine in its belly is a very unpredictable beast indeed.’