by Carol Hedges
“My treat, Mr Monday,” Bulstrode says, signalling to the waiter.
Bulstrode settles the bill. Monday bows, smiles his thanks, tears off the piece of paper with the poem, and presents it with a flourish to Grizelda, who accepts it with a simpering little smile.
He eyes Belinda hopefully, but she is busy tying the strings of her bonnet.
As they make their way out of the coffee shop and back into the noisy thronged street, Belinda Kite has already forgotten the poet and the encounter. She remembers only the hungry expression on Hawksley’s face. The way his dark eyes appraised her. The way it made her feel inside.
Something is beginning, she thinks, though what it might be she does not yet know. Maybe it is simple desire, not like love, nothing so complicated. Or perhaps it is like a first love. Like an obsession.
***
We last met Police Constable ‘Taffy’ Evans patrolling his beat in Regent Street. Since then, honesty and integrity have proved their own reward. Now he is a sergeant in the Metropolitan Police. He wears the distinctive dark blue coat and black stovepipe hat. He has a new leather belt with a snake-type clasp.
Some things remain, though. He is still engaged to the lovely (if volatile) Megan, and now has high hopes that his recent promotion, bringing with it clouds of glory and an increase in salary, will finally enable him to marry her.
She certainly hopes so, and has dropped epistolary hints to that end several times. And also hints of what might happen if he fails to honour his promise.
Sergeant Evans is proceeding, as they say in police parlance, to Drury Lane, whence he has been summoned by one of his beat constables. An ‘incident’ has occurred. No surprise to anyone in authority: the area is notorious for its filthy alleys, lodging houses and pubs where vice and criminality breed and flourish.
Prostitutes and beggars throng the streets, and Sergeant Evans has taken the precaution of being accompanied by a couple of constables, because even though he has patrolled this area in the past and knows its little ways very well, you can never be too careful.
He turns into Shelton Street, where a small crowd of assorted citizenry awaits his arrival.
“Oi, P’liceman,” a woman in the crowd shouts out as he approaches.
The crowd parts, giving Sergeant Evans his first view of a derelict brick-banded building, one of the many common lodging houses that line the filthy street. Someone has painted, in large red letters, somewhat trickly in places, the stark words Den of Theeves on the front door.
“Wrote it on number 24. And number 30,” one of the men says, nodding at the door. “Shockin’, innit?”
Accurate, though, Sergeant Evans thinks to himself, recalling who generally rents rooms in this street.
“Oh, indeed it is shocking,” he agrees setting his facial expression to suitably shocked.
“An’ that ain’t all,” the woman says, stepping forward, her massive uncorseted bust quivering with indignation. “You wanter see what they painted on Mrs Carmine’s door. None too happy, she woz, when she saw it.”
“What did they paint?”
The woman leans forward, emitting a strong smell of onions, armpits and unwashed clothes.
“Filthy Fornicators.”
A small child, clinging to her skirts but barely visible, pipes up,
“Wossa forn’cater, Aunty Flo?”
“It’s a kind of machine,” Sergeant Evans says smoothly, giving the woman a quick look.
The child nods.
“Aw. I nivver seen no machine up there, only them ladies wot wears dresses showing their bubbies.”
Sergeant Evans takes out his notebook.
“Have any more properties had their doors painted?”
“There’s summat on the chapel door in Little Wild Street.”
“Show me.”
The man leads the way. The crowd tags along hopefully, in the way of any crowd anywhere. On the wooden doors are the red-painted words:
God sees You. Repent From Your Wikked Ways.
Now Sergeant Evans is really shocked. He was brought up Chapel, and vestiges of his Bible-based Welsh childhood have never left him, despite the attempts of the heaving teeming city to drive it out.
He sucks in a long breath.
“This is an abomination upon God’s house.”
“You’re right there, officer,” the man agrees. “And whoever done it can’t spell properly either.”
His words strike a chord. Sergeant Evans eyes the red obscenity and begins to think professionally. Must be someone local, else how would they know which doors to write on? Also, someone small in height – the letters are only five foot or so off the ground. Must have been done in the very early hours.
“Where might one obtain a pot of paint and some brushes around here?” he asks.
The crowd goes into a huddle. Various names and locations are suggested for consideration. Finally, a small man steps forward. He has a small unhappy face, prominent at the forehead, receding towards the chin. His mouth is pursed in an expression of permanent disappointment.
The small man gives it as his opinion that the nearest hardware shop to buy paint is in New Oxford Street, though whether this exact paint was purchased there, he really couldn’t say.
The crowd agrees, and seeing that Sergeant Evans has now closed his notebook, indicative that nothing more exciting is going to happen, begins to melt away into the courts and alleys that lead off Sheldon Street.
Sergeant Evans casts a final look at the chapel door, shakes his head in nonplussed incomprehension, and sets off for New Oxford Street, where he will find the paint shop, but not the red paint – red being a colour not popular with the upmarket clientele that frequents the establishment.
He will eventually return to Scotland Yard, where he’ll discover that more important events have taken over in his absence, meaning that his conscientiously-written report will lie on Stride’s desk, unread, for many days.
***
The lights have been dimmed in the Golden Cross function room. The crowds have dispersed, the biscuits and coffee have all gone. The clerk has been sent on his way. There only remains Mark Hawksley, his two companions, and a cash box stuffed with cheques and notes.
“A very good day’s business,” Ginster remarks.
Hawksley agrees. He opens the cash box and dashes them each a fistful of notes.
“Expenses, gentlemen. Enjoy it. There will be plenty more where that came from. And I have another idea – it came to me earlier when I was speaking to one of our good investors.”
His companions regard him curiously, but Hawksley waves them away.
“Let us agree to meet at the Albion this evening,” he says. “By then I will have finalised my plans and will be able to tell you more.”
They walk out of the hotel. Ginster and Pyle set off in different directions. Hawksley watches them depart with a smile of satisfaction. Then he gets out the sparkling diamond and throws it up in the air. He is careful to catch it as it falls, for he knows that if it reaches the ground, it will splinter into tiny fragments.
He needs this ‘diamond’ for other days. As he strides away, he turns over Bulstrode’s business card in his pocket, and remembers a pair of green eyes, a shapely figure and an innocent yet insouciant air. Other days, and other pleasures. It is all turning out even better than he planned.
***
Sergeant Evans’ return to Scotland Yard coincides with the delivery of the dead footman to the police morgue. While Stride and Cully have been spending a fruitless morning (though it has not been without cake) visiting local confectioners in the Hampstead and surrounding areas, the dead man’s body has been viewed by another pair of detectives, who have questioned the Osborne family and their servants.
Now the body, plus the remaining cake still in its delivery box, are with the police surgeon. Stride and Cully hurry across the yard to the cold, clinical, white-tiled autopsy room that smells of chemicals and mortality and unhappiness.
&
nbsp; The police surgeon, like all pathologists, is no respecter of men. To him, heroes and whores, leaders and laggards are all mere meat on a slab. Alive, they might have been somebody. Dead, their secrets pour out as blackened livers, inflamed hearts. Their brains exposed in the bowl of their skull.
He greets Stride and Cully with his usual air of lugubrious satisfaction.
“Good morning, gentlemen. Did you know that according to recent studies, each human brain differs according to sex, age, consumption of alcohol and disease?”
“Very interesting,” Stride says flatly.
“Oh indeed, Detective Inspector. Very. It would be even more interesting, would it not, to see if language made any difference. Say, the brain of a French female compared with that of her English counterpart. What would we discover, I wonder?”
“That they were both dead?” Stride suggests.
The surgeon rolls his eyes and tutts.
“You have no imagination, Detective Inspector.”
“I have a job to do. That’s why I’m here.”
“Indeed you are. And what I have is one case of death by poisoning, immediately followed by another. Or rather, a strong presumption of it. Lucky I didn’t put my equipment away, isn’t it?”
He gestures towards a large wide-mouthed glass jar and a series of smaller ones lined up on the wooden bench.
Stride looks at the jars. They are glass-stoppered, clean, and very empty. He attempts not to think what they might have contained. What they are about to contain. He tries not to let his thoughts show on his face, but fails.
“Ah, Inspector, I see you are displaying your usual distaste for the fascinating autopsy processes. I guess you are not intending to stay and watch the evisceration of this poor unfortunate, then?”
“I’ll leave it to you, shall I?” Stride grunts. “After all, you’re the expert.”
The police surgeon smiles complacently.
“Indeed so. I leave speculation to the professionals like yourself. Though in this case, it is more a question of verification rather than deduction, as we have an actual uneaten example of the last food this man ingested.”
He smiles and starts rocking gently on his feet – the sign that a lecture is about to be delivered. Stride braces himself.
“Unlike strychnine or cyanide, that both work to a strict timetable, arsenic is a mysterious and shilly-shallying poison, Detective Inspector. It has to be absorbed into the bloodstream before it can have its fatal effect.”
“Have you found evidence of it in the cake?” Stride asks, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice.
“I have indeed tried a few chemicals upon the sweetmeat, and I can say with complete confidence that should you have attempted to partake of even a mouthful, your future would very quickly be a thing of the past. And what a tragic loss to policing that would be, eh?”
Stride wills himself not to display his irritation. The long-winded and idiosyncratic nature of the police surgeon has been a source of annoyance ever since he joined the Detective Division. But the man’s skill is second to none. He reminds himself of this now.
“So you found evidence of poison?”
“Oh, indeed. The cake was laced with arsenic. It could have been by chance, for it might have occurred before the baking process. Or maybe not. That is for you to discover. But either way, there is clear evidence of admixture.”
“Have you got the box that the cakes came in?” Cully asks.
“Indeed I have retained the item, as I expected that you would wish to examine it. It is on the bottom shelf, under the table.”
“We will show this box to Mr and Mrs Undercroft,” Stride says. “Perhaps one of them might recognise the similarity.”
The police surgeon nods.
“Do so. I shall now attempt an anatomical exploration of the body itself. Did you know, Detective Inspector, that is it not the ingestion of the poison itself that causes the ultimate demise of its hapless victim, but the strain upon the heart which generates a complete system collapse. To the victim, of course, the point is somewhat academic.”
The surgeon’s hand hovers over the set of gruesome dissecting knives laid out in their blue-lined rosewood case.
Stride winces, feeling his gorge rising.
“Come on Jack,” he says spinning on his heel. “Nothing to be gained standing around here. We have two murders on our hands now. Let’s go to my office and see what avenues we need to go down to find the poisoner.”
***
The Albion Tavern has known days when stagecoaches clattered into the cobbled yard and passengers descended to stretch their legs and partake of refreshment before continuing their journey.
The coming of the railway, however, has put paid to those glory times, and now The Albion Tavern is a public house serving the bustling area around King’s Cross Station. For this purpose, the bar has been refurbished with new gas lighting. The floor has been freshly sanded and the half-dozen compartments provided with new oilcloth-covered tables and wooden benches. But the drinkers are transient, the place anonymous. It is the sort of bar where nobody knows your name.
The black-framed prints of naval engagements and men o’ war that ornamented the dark painted walls have been replaced by bright mirrors, so that it is impossible not to meet yourself at every turn of the head, each sighting being a source of doubt or vanity.
Look more closely. In a back booth, Hawksley and his two companions Ginster and Pyle are regaling themselves with boiled beef, potatoes, and tumblers of brandy and water. Hawksley has spread a map upon the table, and they are all studying it intently. A pretty young barmaid in a slightly stained apron stands within summoning distance, awaiting their pleasure. Earlier she and Hawksley reached an agreement for when the meeting ends, where the pleasure will hopefully be mutual.
“It is decided,” Hawksley says. “You two will travel to the West Country, to Bath, Bristol and Exeter. You will seek out a suitable venue in each town – after which you will place an advertisement in the local papers for the dates we have agreed and using the names I have told you. Write to me when all preparations are complete, and I shall be with you on the earliest train.”
“And what will you do in the meantime?” Ginster asks.
Hawksley smiles. “I shall remain here in London, the home of our beloved monarch, who rarely ventures out of her castle gates, but who may be making an appearance at a couple of very select gatherings.”
The two men stare at him.
“For a very large amount of money, of course,” he continues smoothly. “You cannot expect a Queen to attend a champagne supper for under a thousand pounds a head.”
Pyle whistles under his breath.
“I take my hat off to you, Mark,” he grins. “I thought you just wanted her for the photographs, nothing more. If anybody deserves to be rich, it is you, and that’s for sure. How do you come up with these schemes?”
“I just listen to what the public want. And then I give it to them. They want to see the Queen – so they shall see a Queen. It will not be the one who currently hides herself away in Windsor Castle weeping and wailing for her dear departed Prince Consort, but they have never seen that Queen, so they won’t know the difference.”
***
London at night. The restlessness of a great city, tumbling and tossing before it can get to sleep. A late-night cab rattles by. The last veritable sparks of flickering life, worn out by the night’s entertainment, trail away and the city finally sinks to rest.
Two cloaked and hooded figures are walking the streets under the pattering rain. Through the interminable tangle of streets they go, ducking into doorways to avoid a solitary policeman on his beat, while the rain drip drips from ledge and coping, splash-splashes from pipes and waterspouts.
The shops are all shuttered, the theatre lights are extinguished. The figures pass Newgate, grim and black, touching its rough stones, imagining the prisoners within its walls sleeping in their cells and dreaming of green fields and
endless horizons. They pass cemeteries where the dead sleep, but do not dream. They hear the spreading vibrations of church clocks striking three.
At length, the two reach their destination, where they pause, and set to work. By the time they have completed their task and started on their way back home, the gaslights will be extinguished, light by light, like pearls spilled from a curved rope, as day arrives. The first straggling workpeople will be out and about, and the first street-corner breakfast sellers will be lighting their fires.
***
Detective Inspector Stride is known for his sang-froid and his ability to be master of his emotions in any situation. Very little, it is said, can surprise him. And yet here he is, seated behind his desk, stunned into total and uncomprehending silence.
The reasons for this are standing not three feet away: Clamp, chief reporter on The Morning Post, and Dandy, ditto on The Inquirer. The two journalists appeared in the outer office first thing, managed to elude the desk constable, and have now thrust their unannounced selves into Stride’s office.
Dandy leans forward and thumps an ink-stained fist on Stride’s desk. A pile of paperwork shifts uneasily.
“What are the boys in blue going to do about this, then?” he snarls. “Because it’s a bloody disgrace!”
Clamp agrees. He is rotund, wearing a loud tweed suit, and sweating slightly in the heat generated by the office fire.
Stride eyes them both thoughtfully, and in silence.
“I’m telling you, Stride, we aren’t going to stand for it.”
Stride nods his head slowly.
“Let me see if I have this correct: you say that someone painted words on the doors of The Post and The Inquirer last night and it’s a police matter? Really?”
“It ain’t the words, it’s what the words say.”
Stride raises an eyebrow.
“And what do they say, Mr Dandy? I am agog.”
“Liars and hypocrites, that’s what they painted on our doors,” Clamp butts in. “Big red painted letters for all the passing world to see and gawk at.”