by Lee Jackson
‘Indeed,’ replies Woodrow. ‘What do you think, Langley?’
‘I have very little experience of such things,’ says Richard Langley, visibly blushing.
‘Well,’ says Woodrow, turning back to Siddons, ‘then it seems the field is all yours, sir.’
‘Hah!’ exclaims Siddons. ‘If I were but twenty years younger, perhaps, I might plough that particular furrow. Still, the thought of it stirs the blood, eh?’
‘Gentlemen, please,’ says Langley.
‘Quite,’ says Siddons, with a distinct drunken nod of his head, ‘quite right. I meant no offence to the young lady. And I expect she’d much prefer a younger fellow, eh?’
Langley blushes once more.
A half-hour late, with their cigars extinguished, the trio of men adjourn to the Woodrows’ drawing-room. There, Joshua Siddons is the first to beg leave of his hostess, in a rather lavish manner, giving a lengthy panegyric upon the merits of Mrs. Figgis’s cooking, and the wisdom of her employer. Richard Langley lingers a little longer, during which time a week-day visit to St. Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, in the company of Mrs. Woodrow and her cousin, is settled upon. Nonetheless, he leaves the house no more than five minutes after his fellow guest. Finally, Annabel Krout excuses herself and makes her way upstairs to bed.
Jasper Woodrow sits down heavily upon an armchair. Mrs. Woodrow waits until Annabel is out of earshot before she says a word.
‘Did he say anything?’ she asks her husband.
‘Langley? Said he liked the pork.’
‘You did not talk about the business?’
‘Siddons did. The old fool was drunk, I swear. Practically had to gag him to shut him up. I should never had told him Langley had pulled out. I swear, he does everything to provoke me; it seems to amuse him.’
‘Nonsense!’ exclaims Mrs. Woodrow. ‘What a thing to say! Why should he? He is our oldest friend.’
‘No reason. None at all,’ says Woodrow, though he does not look his wife in the eye.
‘He was just trying to help, my dear. But Mr. Langley . . . well, he seemed quite cheerful, did he not?’
‘Affable enough, I suppose. Once I’d shut Siddons up, at least.’
‘Mr. Langley has such good manners,’ says Mrs. Woodrow. ‘I swear, he would be so right for Annabel.’
Woodrow scowls. ‘I don’t care about his damn manners.’
Mrs. Woodrow sighs. ‘Never mind. We shall think of something, Woodrow, I promise you.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE HALL CLOCK strikes eleven as Annabel Krout removes the pin from her chignon, letting her hair fall down over her shoulders, concealing the lace trim of her night-gown. Sitting in front of her writing desk, she can hear footsteps upon the adjoining landing, Mrs. Woodrow and her husband, retiring to their bedrooms. She turns up the oil-lamp, so that its orange glow extends further over the sheet of paper before her, and takes up her pen, dipping it in the nearby ink-well, writing ‘An English Dinner Party’ at the head of the page. She ponders a first sentence for some minutes, but her thoughts are suddenly interrupted by an urgent knock at the bedroom door.
‘Come in?’
The Woodrows’ maid-servant swings the door open, and walks breathlessly into the room, looking anxiously around her.
‘Jacobs? What is it?’ asks Annabel.
‘Lor, Miss, I thought she might be here.’ She pauses for a moment, red-faced, almost tearful. She seems to struggle to speak, as if she cannot quite bring herself to say the words. But, at last, she bursts out, ‘Oh, please, help us.’
‘If I can,’ says Annabel, ‘but what is it?’
‘Miss Lucy. I can’t find her.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Is she missing?’
‘Yes, Miss. I mean, I don’t know. I should have been keeping an eye on her. I was only downstairs for a moment, just to get some water. I thought she was sound asleep.’
‘And now she is not in her room?’
The maid shakes her head. ‘No, Miss. What if she’s had one of her turns again? I was supposed to be watching her.’
‘Perhaps she is with her mother,’ suggests Annabel.
‘Oh no,’ says Jacobs, anxiety in her voice, ‘I’d hear about that quick enough.’
‘You have looked upstairs?’
‘Every room, Miss.’
‘Downstairs?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Then,’ says Annabel, hurriedly tying her dressing-gown tight around her waist, and picking up the lamp upon her desk, ‘don’t worry, we shall look for her together. She can’t have gone far. She is just playing a trick on you.’
‘Thank you, Miss,’ says Jacobs. ‘You’re so good.’
‘I just do not want her to get into more trouble with her father,’ says Annabel quietly, as they go out on to the landing and descend the stairs. ‘You look in the study, Jacobs, I will check the drawing-room.’
Jacobs obeys, but before Annabel can reach the drawing-room door, she feels an intense cold draught of air. Stopping short of her destination, the sensation causes her to look down into the hall below, where she notices the heavy curtain that conceals the front-door lies partially pulled back, and the door itself slightly ajar. A shiver runs down her spine.
‘Jacobs,’ she exclaims in an urgent whisper.
‘Yes, Miss?’
‘Look,’ says Annabel, pointing at the open door. ‘Why is the door open?’
The maid-servant stares open-mouthed at the open door. ‘Oh, Miss, you don’t think? Don’t say it. The master’ll have my guts.’
‘Go and wake Mr. and Mrs. Woodrow,’ says Annabel firmly. ‘If she has gone out, we must all go and look.’
‘Miss, I can’t . . .’
But before Jacobs can say another word, Annabel Krout has ran down the stairs, her dressing-gown flapping about her legs, and out into the street.
Annabel almost despairs as she steps out into the night air. For the fog of previous days, though only thin wisps of vapour, seems to have begun maliciously to re-form. Moreover, her lamp, though adequate for reading in bed, seems barely to penetrate the darkness; likewise, her house-slippers suddenly seem rather inadequate upon the hard stone, so that she half trips as she descend the steps from the front door to the street.
‘Lucy!’ she shouts.
There is no reply.
‘Lucinda!’
She waits but again hears no response. Then she sees a movement, a hint of something white, just like the little ghost she saw in her room, moving past the gaslight upon the other side of the gardens, then abruptly disappearing from view. She cannot fathom it for a moment, how the figure vanishes so suddenly; but then it comes to her: the gate down to the canal.
Annabel does not hesitate but sprints across Duncan Terrace, and around the iron-railed gardens, the weight of the heavy lamp making her run in ungainly leaps and bounds. Mud splashes her velvet slippers, soaks into the soles of her feet. Losing her balance, she bangs her arm against the corner of the railings. But she does not fall and keeps running until she reaches the gate. She can hardly see down the slope that runs down to the tow-path, for the only light by the canal itself is the one she carries. Nonetheless she levers open the barrier.
‘Lucy!’
Again, no reply. The slope is rather wet and slippery and, in the darkness, the surface of the still, black water below looks somehow strangely solid, a smooth, dark trench. She cannot help but think that it would be tempting to reach out with her foot and try to walk across to the other side; and then, thinking of Lucy, the idea rather chills her. She extends her arm, holding the lamp as far from her body as she can, as if swinging it will somehow generate some additional radiance that will reveal the little girl. But nothing comes of it, except that she abruptly feels terribly cold and tired. Worse, the fog seems to grow even denser with each passing moment.
But then there is something that makes her spin around; not a sign of Lucy but a rumbling, heavy moan, which sounds like
it comes from within the very bowels of the earth. First one terrible resounding, reverberating thud, then another, growing louder each time. Then a small ball of yellow light hovering in the air, appearing as if from nowhere; the low roar of a churning engine, the splash of water. Annabel stands transfixed, as the light grows bigger and more lurid, the machine noise louder; then comes an almighty hiss as clouds of billowing smoke issue from the Islington tunnel, mixing with the fog, like the breath of some ancient river-dragon. The sight seems weirdly Tartarean, fantastical. Indeed, it takes her a moment to catch her breath, to make out the true character of the beast: a steam-tug coming through the tunnel, making its way free of the arched entry, dragging its quota of clattering barges behind, each one banging against the stone walls. But the captain of the vessel is quicker to respond.
‘Who’s there? On the path? You there!’
‘Please, stop for a moment,’ shouts Annabel.
‘Hold there,’ shouts the man in question. But Annabel barely hears him. For, in the lamp-light that shines from the rear of the tug, she can just make out a small white figure, standing silently by the edge of the tow-path, a couple of feet before it terminates, back by the entrance to the tunnel. Annabel stumbles along the path, driven by a mixture of excitement and fear, until she can make out Lucinda Woodrow standing quite still.
‘Lucy! Can you hear me?’
Lucy does not reply. The captain of the boat, however, now drawn to a halt, shines his lamp back along the path, illuminating Annabel and the little girl. Annabel holds up her light, and finds Lucy’s eyes as vacant as when she stood in her bedroom, staring into the street.
‘What’s happening there?’ shouts the man, his voice a mixture of irritation and curiosity. ‘Who’s that?’
Annabel does not reply. For she realises that her little cousin is not simply standing still, but pointing her finger down into the water. Annabel bends down, holding her lamp by the very side of the path.
And though it is dim, it is quite sufficient to reveal the body of a man, floating in the canal, his head submerged in the dark water.
PART THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
DECIMUS WEBB CLOSES the iron gate behind him, and walks hesitantly down the mossy track that leads to the tow-path of the Regent’s Canal, a few steps behind the rather more agile Sergeant Bartleby. It is a chill morning, with a hint of mist hanging above the water, and the ground under foot is muddy enough to warrant caution. Ahead of them, by the bank itself, stands a uniformed policemen, wearing the stripes of a sergeant. He looks up and waves.
‘Inspector Webb?’
Webb nods, although he does not quicken his pace.
‘Hope we haven’t got you both here under false pretences, sir,’ continues the sergeant. He steps forward to offer Webb and Bartleby a firm handshake. ‘My name’s Trent.’
‘False pretences, Sergeant Trent? I should hope not too,’ replies Webb. ‘Where is your inspector?’
‘Gone back to the station house, sir. The damp is bad for his rheumatics. He said you may as well talk personal-like, to myself, seeing as I was here first.’
‘Hmm. Well, send him my compliments,’ says Webb, looking along the canal. ‘So where is your little find?’
‘Just here, sir, though he ain’t so little,’ replies the sergeant, motioning Webb and Bartleby a few yards back along the tow-path. There, along by the side of the sloping track that they came down, lies a dirty-looking blanket, not too distinct from the muddy earth around it, barely covering the outline of a body.
‘We haven’t moved him since we got him out of the water. Big fellow, though, took three of us to shift him.’
‘Yes, well, that would be right,’ murmurs Webb. ‘For heaven’s sake, man, let me see him.’
‘Right you are, sir,’ says Sergeant Trent, stepping to one side, as Webb leans down and pulls back the cloth concealing the dead man’s face.
‘That him, sir?’
Webb looks down at the features of the corpse. Though his jowls are a little devoid of colour, his hair bedraggled, his eyes glazed and vacant, it is unmistakably the face of Vasilis Brown.
‘Yes, it is,’ replies Webb. ‘You did well to let me know, Sergeant.’
‘In fairness, sir, it was one of my men, Constable Hicks, what recognised the description you circulated, when we swapped shifts. We’ve sent word to the City force too. Inspector Hanson, wasn’t it?’
‘Indeed, Inspector Hanson. Still I think we must begin here without him; my apologies if you are later obliged to repeat yourself, Trent. Now, when did you find the body?’
‘Well, sir,’ replies the sergeant, ‘it was about half-past eleven last night when I got here. Can’t say how long the chap had been in the water.’
‘Not too long, I should think,’ says Webb, bending down, looking at the dead man’s face and hands, examining the skin.
‘No, sir. Can’t have been, in fact. The boats come here pretty regular, every couple of hours even during the night. He’d have taken more of a battering, if he had been in there that long. Although there’s a nasty wound on the back of his head, if you lift him up a bit, sir. Unfortunate business, eh?’
Webb tilts the dead man’s head, gently parting Brown’s thick locks of black hair, revealing bruised, torn skin and, with the blood washed away in the dirty water, a pale white hint of bone at the back of his skull.
‘Unfortunate for him,’ says Webb. ‘Now, what do you make of that, Bartleby? What caused it?’
‘It might have been a boat, of course,’ suggests the sergeant. ‘Or do you think it was foul play, sir?’
‘Does it really look like he went under a boat, Sergeant?’
‘I’d say not, sir. You’d expect more damage to the rest of him. The neck at least.’
‘Good. Now—’
‘Wait a moment,’ says Bartleby, observing a particular spot upon the brick wall behind them, by the mouth of the tunnel. ‘There you go, sir.’
‘What?’
‘It looks like blood,’ replies the sergeant, pointing.
Webb gets up and peers closely at the coarse brick; it is, indeed, stained with a splash of dark colour, and several wiry black hairs, like those of the dead man, appear to be snagged in the rough stone. Webb smiles.
‘I’ll have you know, Sergeant Trent,’ says Webb, sardonically, ‘Bartleby is one of our best men. Nothing escapes him. Well done, Sergeant.’
Sergeant Bartleby does not rise to the bait, but merely nods.
‘So, gentlemen,’ continues Webb, looking at the dead man, then back to the wall, ‘there was a struggle here; the mark is at the right height, is it not? Bash! The fellow’s brains are crashed against this wall, with some force, mind you, then his body despatched into the water. Did you find any other clues, Sergeant? No footprints? Nothing on the man’s person?’
‘Footprints, sir? Well, I should think there was, only it was impossible to say who belonged to them, seeing as how such a crowd was rushing up and down.’
‘A crowd? Why was there a crowd here? You have a man on the gate,’ says Webb, looking up towards the road above. ‘Has he been charging a penny a look?’
‘Sir!’ says Trent.
Webb sighs. ‘You must forgive my flippancy, Sergeant; I have no wish to impugn your integrity. But I fail to see why there was a “crowd”?’
‘I think,’ says Trent, frowning, ‘you must have misunderstood, sir. I was the first officer here, but it weren’t me that found him.’
‘Then who was it?’
‘It seems, sir, it was a little girl that wandered out of a nearby property.’
‘Correct me if I am wrong, Sergeant, but these,’ says Webb, gesturing towards the backs of the homes that overlook the canal, ‘are respectable households, are they not? What was a little girl doing out at such an hour?’
‘Apparently she walks in her sleep, sir.’
‘Really?’
‘So I was told, sir. Her mother and father were out here lookin
g for her,’ continues Trent, retrieving his notebook, ‘and another female, a cousin, and a female servant—’
‘That will suffice, Sergeant. Where are they now?’
‘We told them to wait on us calling this morning, sir. I actually popped in earlier, said you might be wanting a word. The master of the house weren’t too happy, between you and me, sir. Said he didn’t have time for such things; “a business to run”.’
‘Did he now?’ says Webb. ‘Well, at all events, tell your man to let no-one else down here, until Inspector Hanson should arrive at least.’
‘I will do, sir.’
‘Now, where might I find this gentleman who is too busy for such trifles?’
‘I’ll show you, sir. Just across the way on Duncan Terrace. Woodrow’s the fellow’s name. He’s in the—’
‘Not the mourning trade?’ suggests Webb.
‘Eh? Do you know the man, sir?’
‘It seems likely,’ says the inspector, casting a quizzical glance at Bartleby, ‘that we do.’
Webb rings the door-bell at Duncan Terrace. It is a matter of seconds before the door is answered by the Woodrows’ manservant, and both the inspector and sergeant are ushered swiftly inside. Thus, if the Woodrows’ neighbours must observe the attendance of Her Majesty’s Police upon the household, they are at least given the shortest possible time in which to do so. Jervis leads the two policemen expeditiously up to the drawing-room upon the first floor, where Jasper Woodrow stands by the window, turning to face his guests as they enter the room.
‘Inspector Webb. Sergeant,’ he says, nodding.
‘Mr. Woodrow. I believe you are not surprised to see us.’
‘I saw you from the window, Inspector. I was told to wait for the police. But I confess, I was surprised to see you. Do you deal with every tragedy in London?’
‘Of course not, sir. Just the awkward ones.’
‘No more than you’re involved in them all, I should expect, sir,’ adds Bartleby. Webb gives the sergeant a minatory glance.
‘I mean to say,’ continues Bartleby, ‘it’s just one of those queer coincidences, eh, sir?’