A Metropolitan Murder

by Lee Jackson

  ‘You don’t see, Inspector, do you? You don’t see the worst of it? That man has made a fool of me for thirty years. Look,’ she says, taking a particular book, showing him the open page, ‘look at the names by the entries, here. Look!’

  Webb looks in the margin and reads the names of Meynell and, a few weeks later, White.

  ‘He had the pick of these soiled creatures come live in my house, Inspector. My house! My servants – these were the women he chose for me! What do you think of my blessed husband now?’

  ‘Well, I am rather afraid,’ says Webb, ‘that I must speak to them both, ma’am, the White girl in particular.’

  ‘You cannot, I am afraid.’

  ‘I cannot? And why is that?’

  ‘I dismissed them last night. Do you think I would keep them here for a moment longer, for my own amusement?’

  Mrs. Harris looks a little flushed. ‘Will you take it away, all of it?’ she says.

  Webb nods. ‘We will, ma’am. Perhaps you should rest yourself.’

  It is only when Mrs. Harris has left the room that Webb addresses Henry Cotton.

  ‘An awful business.’

  ‘I would never have thought it of him,’ replies Cotton, still reading, incredulously, the contents of one of Harris’s books.

  ‘Hmm. You think, perhaps, Mr. Bill Hunt had the right idea?’

  ‘I do not say that, but at least it explains what he meant, does it not? Some girl, a sister, cousin, or what-have-you, was one of these girls; he came across Harris, wanted revenge of some kind.’

  ‘Some girl? You need to look at all the facts, my good man. It is plain who is behind this whole wretched business, from Sally Bowker onwards.’

  ‘It is? You have the better of me, Inspector.’

  ‘Well,’ says Webb, ‘rather, I should say, I have narrowed it down to one of a pair. But it is rather hard to say which one.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CLARA WHITE WALKS along Wapping High Street. The smoke stacks of the London Docks are belching sulphurous spirals of soot-black cloud into the sky, and the heavens themselves are dark and pregnant with rain. She looks down at the small carpet-bag containing her few belongings, and cannot help but picture her mother walking the same dirty street, with two bedraggled little girls trailing behind. Indeed, the relics of her childhood are all around her, the same frowsy public houses; the slopsellers who specialise in ‘souwesters’ or ‘norwesters’, as the fancy takes them; whole fronts of buildings taken up with dirty-looking oilskins and draped lines of canvas trousers; the pawnbroker’s shop by Red Lion Street, where the sign is not the three balls, but an iron globe and mariner’s compasses. Even the air is familiar, spiced by the presence of the docks, a faint foreign aroma, the dust of oriental cargoes dragged into the great warehouses behind the walls; and then there is the ever-present smell of tobacco and, passing by the Black Boy, of rum and cheap gin.

  She is not fond, she decides, of any of her memories; and yet somehow her feet have conspired to drag her back to the wretched place where she began.

  Gravehunger Court.

  She hesitates by the alley; she has not been down the muddy passage since the night her mother was found. She looks over her shoulder and walks hesitantly down it, towards the courtyard. When she was a girl, she thinks to herself, the yard seemed such a large playground; now it makes her feel hemmed in, and her very lungs feel constricted by the rank and foetid air that lingers in the place. She does not look overly long at the well; rather, she stares at her grandmother’s house, the wretched pile of crumbling bricks and stucco that was once something resembling a home. As she glances upwards, it begins to rain, and, for a moment, she fancies she see someone moving by a window upon the second floor; or, at least, by the empty frame, since there is no glass to be seen there.

  She hurries under the porch, and pushes against the front door, which hangs only loosely on rusting hinges.

  ‘Halloa?’

  Her voice reverberates about the house; the building seems in such disrepair that she fancies the very sound of it will shake free another piece of the plaster from the walls. She looks in the downstairs rooms; they are quite empty, stripped long ago of anything of value, down to the water-logged bare boards of the floor, the only thing that remains. It is peculiar, she thinks, how loud the river sounds in these rooms now, when there is nothing else to be heard.

  Wait.

  The sound of footsteps. She retraces her steps into the hallway, and shouts once more, but there is no reply. She knows the stairs are not to be trusted; she can see two or three are splintered in half, bent nails projecting from the wood where someone has attempted to prise a few loose for the timber.

  But there it is again.

  She tries the first step, then the second; gradually she makes her way upwards, to the first-floor landing, gingerly testing every board before she puts her full weight upon it. The wind bellows in through another of the empty casements, behind her this time, at the rear of the house, carrying the rain with it. From the landing she can look down on the black river; the boats at anchor seem to her to huddle together, tall masts nodding in silent communication. In a moment, as the breeze dies down a little, she can hear it again.

  ‘I know you’re there,’ she says, shouting upwards.

  She ascends the second flight more confidently; the boards are not quite so dilapidated. She looks hesitantly into each of the rooms, until she comes to what, at one time in the distant past, might have been the drawing-room of some long-forgotten merchant, overlooking the courtyard. Now it is simply an empty box, lined with peeling wall-paper, the air carrying the earthy smell of damp plaster and decay. A solitary figure is inside, standing by the window.

  ‘Lizzie?’

  ‘I knew it would be you,’ says Lizzie Hunt, not turning to face her sister.

  ‘Lizzie? What are you doing here? Look at me.’

  Lizzie inclines her head to the doorway; even in the dim light of the room, as the rain thunders outside, Clara can see her face is wan, her eyes bloodshot, the skin around them puffed and swollen.

  ‘What do you want?’ says Lizzie. ‘Come to put things right? Too late for that.’

  ‘I didn’t know you would be here. I’ve . . . well, I’ve lost my place.’

  Lizzie laughs, a blurted, hysterical laugh. ‘“Lost your place?” A fine place it was, weren’t it?’

  ‘Lizzie, I swear, I didn’t know about him, not until yesterday when I found out . . . about what he did to you.’

  ‘Oh, so you do now, though? Know it all, do you?’

  ‘Alice told me something. And he kept books. His missus found ’em; they had names and everything. I saw yours.’

  ‘My name?’

  Clara nods.

  ‘And yours?’

  ‘No, he never touched me. Alice, though. It don’t matter. His missus gave us both the push, straight off. Lizzie, why did you go with him? Was it the money?’

  ‘Why did I go with him? Ask our blessed mother, ask her.’

  ‘She’s dead, Lizzie.’

  ‘I know that, don’t I? Why do you think he never touched you, eh? Like you was such a good little girl.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Because that was the arrangement.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘She sold me, Clarrie. Our ma, the old whore. For a home in that damn refuge and your blessed place. Took me to some damn house. They locked me up, did you know that?’

  Clara White shakes her head in disbelief. ‘You’re raving.’

  ‘I ain’t. My own bleedin’ mother served me up on a plate, like a piece of meat, to that butcher. He kept his word too, didn’t he? Proper gentleman. Why do you think I went and did it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You don’t understand, do you? It was me who killed her, our sainted mother.’

  Clara flinches. There is such a note of satisfaction in her sister’s voice.

  ‘You can’t have.’

  �
��Well, I pushed her, anyhow,’ she replies. ‘That was enough.’

  Clara leans against the doorway. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she says, though the tremor in her voice belies her words.

  ‘I thought that stuff she was taking would do it, if she had enough of it, but it didn’t.’

  ‘What stuff? The mixture, at the refuge?’

  ‘I gave her a good bottleful. Told her what I thought of her too, then that girl came in and spoilt it.’

  ‘Sally Bowker.’

  The voice is not that of Clara, but rather Decimus webb, who stands behind her on the landing.

  ‘You come for me, have you?’ says Lizzie, with no defiance in her voice, but rather as if the policeman were some cabman or delivery boy. ‘How did you know I was here?’

  ‘I took advice from an acquaintance,’ replies the inspector, cautiously. ‘You killed the Bowker girl, you admit it? Or was it Bill Hunt?’

  ‘Bill? He wouldn’t hurt a fly, not unless you got him riled. No, I told her I’d see her right if she didn’t blab.’

  ‘You gave her drinks, and the opium.’

  ‘She was quite merry. Said she’d never seen the railway, see? It was a little jaunt, Bill’s little secret place. Then I told Bill she was ill, so he went off to see if he could get her something.’

  ‘And you strangled her?’

  Lizzie Hunt shrugs.

  ‘She couldn’t hardly stand up straight, weren’t hard.’

  ‘And Arthur Harris?’

  She shrugs.

  ‘Hunt admitted it,’ says Webb. ‘You may as well tell the truth.’

  ‘I told Bill what he did to me,’ she says, a tear falling down her face. ‘I made out it was him who’d smacked me, too. Bill went straight off and did for him. He came back all proud of himself.’

  ‘Bill Hunt is dead.’

  Lizzie Hunt does not flinch. If there is a look of regret in her eyes it does not linger too long.

  ‘It don’t matter,’ she continues, looking out of the window, ‘it’s all ruined, ain’t it? I ain’t even got the babby no more.’

  Webb looks puzzled, but Clara steps forward a little; she notices a streak of dark blood on the back of her sister’s skirts.

  ‘You lost it?’ she asks. There is, strange to say, a hint of tenderness in her voice. For the second time, her sister brushes aside a tear.

  ‘When Tom hit me. He didn’t mean it . . .’

  Her words stop as the inspector steps forward, perhaps to take hold of her; behind him she makes out the figure of Henry Cotton.

  ‘You!’ she exclaims in surprise and indignation. ‘You brought him here! You nosed on Tom, didn’t you, you bastard? I knew you was with ’em.’

  The lassitude that previously marked Lizzie Hunt’s demeanour abruptly vanishes, and, with a shout, she launches herself at Cotton as if reaching him were the object of every nerve in her body. She darts past the policeman and her sister like some vengeful Fury, her arms outstretched as if to claw at his face. Cotton, in turn, tries to step backwards, only to realise, too late, that the mouldering boards will not quite take his weight.

  The rest happens so quickly, it is impossible to take it in. There is a crack of splintering wood as Cotton falls backwards, his body flying through the floor. It is not a graceful fall, however, but an explosion of dust and shattering timbers, and, in the confusion, Lizzie Hunt trips, and, in trying to right herself, is sent tumbling down the stairs, cracking the remains of the banisters like a row of match-sticks, falling twenty feet or more down the open stairwell.

  And when she lands, she does not move.

  EPILOGUE

  HENRY COTTON SHIFTS uneasily in the chair provided for him at the back of the court-room. The pain in his leg, though bearable, is amplified by the stuffiness in the packed room. In consequence, he cannot help but wish the coroner might draw matters to a swift conclusion, so that he might finish taking his shorthand account of the proceedings. It takes, however, a good ten minutes or more for the facts of Lizzie Hunt’s demise to be recounted for the last time, and for the verdict of ‘accidental death’ to be pronounced.

  When at last the full ritual of the inquest is completed, Cotton is ushered into an ante-room by Decimus Webb. It is a slow business, since Cotton is relying upon a crutch for his broken leg. They find that Clara White is already seated there. She wears a plain black dress, and a black ribbon in her hair.

  ‘I think,’ says the inspector, ‘that you might wait here for the gentlemen of the press to depart. I said as much to Miss White.’

  ‘I intend to write my own account of the whole business,’ says Cotton, sotto voce.

  Webb smiles. ‘I do not doubt it for a moment, sir. I will be back shortly.’

  With this, Webb departs the room, leaving Cotton and Clara alone.

  ‘Today has been an awful trial for you, I should imagine,’ says Cotton after a long interval.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I have reached a rapprochement – an agreement, I should say – with my family.’

  ‘I am happy for you.’

  ‘It is a smaller annuity, but sufficient to live upon. You have a new position to go to?’

  Clara shakes her head.

  ‘I shall, of course,’ continues Cotton, ‘be taking new rooms.’

  ‘Under your own name?’

  Cotton smiles. ‘Indeed. I was thinking, Clara, I have need of a reliable servant.’

  Clara looks at him, startled. She says nothing, but walks to the far side of the room, her movements hurried and anxious, her body turned away from him.

  ‘You are as bad as him,’ she says, amazement in her voice.

  ‘Who?’ replies Cotton, mildly indignant at such an ungrateful response.

  ‘Harris.’

  ‘Come now, I meant nothing wrong.’

  ‘Did you not?’

  ‘No.’

  Cotton stands up, and walks unsteadily to stand behind her. He puts his hand lightly on her shoulders, and gently pressures her to turn to face him.

  ‘I would treat you,’ says Cotton, leaning closer to her so that their bodies almost touch, ‘as well as any man would. Better.’

  She looks at him uncertainly.

  ‘Besides,’ he continues, ‘who else will take you after this wretched business? It would be a fresh start, for us both.’

  Clara turns away and picks up her hand-bag from the table.

  ‘I believe the newspaper men may be gone by now,’ she says.

  ‘I doubt it,’ replies Cotton.

  ‘I need some fresh air, in any case.’

  ‘I will come with you.’

  ‘There is no need. I believe I can make my own way.’

  ‘Will you think on what I said?’ he asks.

  ‘I will,’ she replies, as she opens the door.

  Cotton watches her step outside. The little room is, in its own way, as oppressive as the court, and he fidgets restlessly until, some quarter of an hour later, when Decimus Webb returns. It is only then that he realises Clara White is unlikely to reappear.

  ‘I think she has gone,’ remarks the Inspector, drily.

  Cotton says nothing. But if he harbours any doubts on the matter, they are swiftly dispelled; for he finds, reaching inside his jacket pocket, that he is suddenly missing his wallet.

  Clara White steps cautiously out on to Wapping High Street. Her exit goes quite unnoticed. She is soon in the back-alleys that lead to Ratcliffe Highway.

  A half-mile further on, she examines the contents of a leather wallet, extracting a pound note and sundry pieces of change, before tossing it into the gutter.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The Metropolitan Railway

  THE WORLD’S FIRST underground railway opened on the 10th January 1863, between Farringdon Street and Paddington. The Times newspaper had described the scheme in 1861 as ‘Utopian’, comparing it to proposals for ‘flying machines, warfare by balloons, tunnels under the Channel and other bold but hazardous propositions’. On the open
ing day, however, the news-papers were full of praise. The Times, in particular, stated ‘the novel introduction of gas into the carriages is calculated to dispel any unpleasant feelings which passengers, especially ladies, might entertain against riding for so long a distance through a tunnel.’ The gas supply was actually stored in canvas bags on the roofs of the carriages, and regularly refilled at the stations.

  The Times had only one complaint: the amount of steam and smoke to which passengers were exposed whilst travelling through the tunnels. Indeed, such conditions would remain a perennial hazard for under-ground travellers in the age of steam, until trains were powered by electricity (beginning with the City and South London Railway in the 1890s). Nonetheless, the Metropolitan Railway proved a roaring success, extending north to Swiss Cottage, south to south Kensington, west to Hammersmith, and east to Moorgate – all during the 1860s – then to Liverpool Street in the 1870s, and Tower Hill by 1882. The modern ‘Circle Line’ was created when the rival Metropolitan District Railway, forerunner of the modern District Line, also extended to Tower Hill in 1884. Other Victorian underground lines followed: the East London Railway (now the East London Line) was opened in 1876; the City and South London Railway (now the Northern Line) opened in 1890; the Waterloo and City in 1898; and the Central London Railway (Central Line) in 1900.

  A Metropolitan Murder is, however, firmly set in 1864 – just twelve months after the opening of the Metropolitan Line. I must confess that this period particularly fascinated me, because the new railway was in a rather chaotic state. In 1864, Farringdon Station was still a temporary wooden structure; the tunnels had not yet been lit by gas; frantic work was taking place to extend the line to Moorgate, and to construct a new permanent station at Farringdon (the one we still use today). Also, 1864 was the year of the country’s first actual ‘railway murder’ – on the North London Line, approaching Highbury – which had passengers entering a blood-soaked carriage, and the discovery of a comatose body discovered by the railway line.