“Why should Alice have gone to the warehouse?” I asked of Dolly and the Mob.
“Not to see us,” said Charlie, tears springing out to order, at which Dolly came over all motherly. The rest of the Mob quickly agreed with him.
“Unless she was killed somewhere else and brought here,” I said, with Joe’s lodgings in mind. They all stared at me with great suspicion.
“Why?” asked Buzzer, speaking for them all.
“She must have been with someone she trusted,” I said hastily. “One of you or Mr Cheery.”
“Bob Cheery,” said Joe immediately, and again his three supporters agreed heartily that this was the solution. I couldn’t see it. Why would he bring her here to kill her, when he lived up Holborn way, and why kill her anyway?
I began to walk back to London Bridge, and would be glad when I reached it. The Borough smelled of Alice for me. Here I’d first seen her, here she had stood by me in the cemetery, here she had lived with Kidsman Joe, but here she had died as well, and the air seemed rank. For all the noise from the taverns, they were tucked away in yards well away from the High Street, which made it an eerie place by dark, and I felt uneasy especially as I heard someone behind me.
Sweeps are not usually attacked for their financial worth, so I turned to see who it might be. In the small pool of light from the gas lamp I recognized Kidsman Joe and Buzzer Bill, and such was their menacing look that a throb of fear turned my stomach over.
“Here we are again, Wasp,” said Joe softly.
“Something about Alice you’ve decided to tell me after all?” I asked brightly.
“A warning to impart,” said Joe, pretending to be gentlemanly as they strolled up to me. His fists were clenched and Buzzer Bill stood with brawny arms akimbo which made it clear gentlemanly behaviour could not be expected.
“Forget about the Swell Mob and Alice, see?” Joe pushed his face up against mine.
“I’ll try to, Joe,” I said reasonably. “But suppose I can’t?”
“Then your legs are going to be even more crooked, Wasp.”
“I don’t need legs to take me to heaven, Joe. How are you planning to get there?” I asked bravely.
“Yeah,” put in Buzzer, who didn’t have any idea what we were talking about.
“Alice pulled a fakement on Micah Muggs and that’s it,” Joe told me forcefully. “Understand?”
“No snitches in the Mob, see,” Buzzer informed me helpfully.
I saw all too clearly. “I’ll be back,” I promised them more cheerfully than I felt. If Alice had been risking her luck with Micah Muggs, she could well have been in trouble – and so could I be.
“On your back,” sniggered Buzzer with a wit I hadn’t credited him with. The way he stuck his jaw out suggested he meant it.
Most dippers and toolers never have to go near Micah Muggs, owing to the high level he deals at. Micah is dressy too, sporting fine Newgate knockers and working in a tail coat. He was even wearing court breeches when I saw him once at the Eagle Tavern. He’s not so swell when it comes to money though, taking an uncommon interest in it. His establishment is by Bleeding Heart Yard in Greville Street near Hatton Garden, and from outside looks a genuine gold and silver business.
“No sweeps in here,” he roared as soon as he laid eyes on me next morning. “Even you, Wasp.”
“Suits me,” I roared back from the doorway. “I’ve come about Alice Dear,” I roared even louder.
Quick as a cracksman, he was out from behind the counter, I was pulled into the shop by my jacket and the door was slammed and locked behind me.
“What about her, little man?” he hissed, pulling me even closer to him, then obviously regretting it, and letting me go in a hurry.
“She’s dead. Three days ago. I’m looking for her murderer.”
His jaw dropped, and he hastily stepped back, as though I had the strong arm of the law up my sleeve.
“It weren’t me,” he babbled, forgetting all about his swell English.
“Who said it was?” I asked reasonably, and he looked more comfortable.
“She came here Monday morning to sell—” he hesitated “—her christening spoon and mug. Said she’d seen Joe Sunday morning,” he added meaningfully. Then, (forgetting he was an honest trader) “she tries a fakement, palming me off with dub finnies and long-tails.” I could see why Micah was aggrieved. “I told her I’d put the word around that Kidsman Joe’s Mob was a bad ’un.”
I could see Joe and Buzzer wouldn’t like that. They had a reputation to keep up, and having Micah put the finger on them could do their trade a lot of harm. If he was to be believed, was Alice acting on her own or under Swell Mob’s orders?
“Alice pleaded with me on bended knee not to tell anyone,” Micah continued, “only it wasn’t her knee she was offering me.” A salacious gleam in his eye. “Said she did it for her old dad and she could say goodbye to her life if it came out. I told her her dad could buy his own lush, and anyway he was in clink. She said no, he was out, courtesy of that writing cove.”
“Mr Dickens,” I supplied.
“She told me her dad spent more than she could earn,” Micah continued savagely. “I believed her. He came round here later roaring drunk, caught me from behind and walloped me. Said he’d tell the pigmen I was a snide if I didn’t cough up. If you’re looking for who killed Alice, Wasp, don’t look my way, I’m a respectable businessman, as you know. Look for old Jacob Dear.”
I enquired where old Jacob Dear might live, in order that I might visit him, and he supplied the address all too eagerly. I was getting very interested in Alice’s dad.
“But don’t forget the Swell Mob,” he said darkly. “I told ’em about her, I did.”
I wouldn’t, I assured him. Guessing I wasn’t about to wallop him myself, he fervently shook my hand, and I set off into another dark alleyway.
This one took me right back to the Borough. Ram’s Head Court was off Clink Street between the two bridges of London and Southwark on the Surrey side. I was being sent from gas standard to gas standard in my search for light over Alice’s death, but I had hopes of this one, because it was not far from the hop warehouse where her body had been found. The court was one of those holes where greedy landlords do nothing for as much rent as they can get, and consequently they are full of stinking cesspools and misery. Why was Mr Dickens’ money for lodgings spent on this, I wondered? The door was open, but I tapped politely on it. It was answered immediately.
“Damn your eyes!” came the merry growl from inside.
“Tom Wasp, chimney sweep,” I shouted back, stepping in and closing the door.
I saw the gentleman who wished me so well slumped before an empty grate, bottle in hand, waistcoat unbuttoned, collar only half attached to the grimy shirt. He opened one bleary eye:
“My name it is Sam Hall,” he continued his song untunefully, no doubt in his belief that he was the great W. G. Ross of the Cyder Cellars.
“Mr Jacob Dear?” I enquired politely.
He nodded cautiously. “Are you the new turnkey?” he asked me doubtfully.
I wasn’t sure how to reply to this. I was no prison turnkey; nor was this a prison, save a prison of drink. It was easy to see how his benefactor’s money was wasted, in addition to Alice’s. Beer and gin bottles tastefully adorned the floor, the table and the only other chair, together with an equally tasteful half-eaten eel pie. Fortunately, he looked happy.
“Welcome to the Marshalsea,” he greeted me grandly. “A newcomer to this place?”
“I am, sir,” I replied. “Through your daughter Alice.”
He blinked. “Poor Alice, poor Alice, dead.”
“I am truly sorry, sir. She was your one support, I suppose.”
In a trice the bleary eyes had cleared. “You call a shilling a day support? A mere trifle sir. A bagatelle. How can a man live on such a sum? Alice deprived me of my rightful inheritance, you know.”
“I didn’t, sir,” I replied cautiously. Co
uld this be the reason that Alice now lay in a mortuary?
“Then you shall,” he promised me darkly. He poured himself a glass of beer, but none for me, though I should have welcomed one. “She stole it from me, her own father. My mother, a rich woman, died without a will. I was her only son. I was the heir, the lawyers told me so. My father was long dead. Naturally people advanced me money on my coming inheritance. I spent it merely to please them. And then a cousin of whose existence I knew nothing came out of the blue; he fought the case in the Doctors’ Commons, who awarded everything to him. Naturally I could not repay my creditors, who most unfairly placed me in the Marshalsea.”
This sounded a strange legal decision to me, but I have never studied law.
“Certificates!” He solemnly wagged a finger at me. “Always keep your certificates, young man. Alas I was born many years before the law requiring central registration, and my dear parents wed even earlier – naturally. No certificates could be found, nor entries in parish registers in the guardianship of the Archbishop. This fiendish cousin produced a case that I was – my dear sir—” Tears began to roll down his cheeks, as he finished in a whimper “– born out of wedlock. In short, that I was a bastard. How could I prove otherwise? Indeed, sir, I could not prove I was born at all.”
He continued to weep, and I could see that it was indeed a predicament if a man cannot be said to be alive unless he can produce a document to verify it. I could not, I realized, be alive myself, but as no one would have left me an inheritance save the stink of the Nichol I need not trouble myself about it.
“The case came before the Prerogative Court,” Mr Dear continued. “My cousin conducted his own case before himself as judge. Not unnaturally he won. It would be strange indeed, had he lost. My dear Alice considered my fate was hard, particularly when I was not at fault.” He reached for another glass of beer.
“But you say she stole your—”
“It was her fault,” he interrupted angrily. “My own daughter. Alice informed me she would see the case reopened in the Doctors’ Commons.”
“How could that be?” I asked. “Alice could not run a law case.” Then I remembered Bob Cheery was the senior clerk there. He might have known the way.
Mr Dear looked impatient. “Through Mr Toodle, of course,” he answered.
“The murdered member of parliament?” I asked surprised.
“The murdered villain,” he said savagely. “My cousin. He who claimed my mother’s estate, he who fought his own case through the Doctors’ Commons, he who died,” he said with satisfaction.
I backed hastily out of this particular flue. There was a puzzling gleam in Alice’s dad’s eye which I did not take to. Especially as I recalled the rumour that it had been a drunkard who had murdered Mr Toodle. There was plenty of soot in this case already, and adding the flue of Mr Toodle’s death would be a step into the dark that I did not welcome.
Mr Dickens left Alice’s funeral immediately after she had been laid to rest, being busy creating his memorial to Alice in words, he told me. I took this to mean he was hard at work on his novel. The Mob was present in force, however, and Mr Cheery too, although keeping well apart from them.
“It was good of you, Mr Cheery,” I began, hazarding a guess, “to get Mr Dear’s inheritance case looked at again.”
He shook his head sadly. “Although Mr Toodle did not always display the integrity he professed in parliament, when it came to matters of his own financial affairs, he was meticulous. Poor Alice could not be dissuaded that he had somehow misconducted himself in the case of Toodle versus Dear. After his death I enquired in the hopes of finding the missing register entries and certificates which Dear maintained had existed. I found nothing. For Alice’s sake, however, I will search again.”
“That’s good of you, sir. I met Alice’s father, who is most eager for the case to be reopened—”
“Lost to the demon drink, poor man.”
“Like the drunkard who killed Mr Toodle.”
He looked at me sharply. “There are plenty of drunks in London, Tom. You think it was Jacob Dear?”
I said nothing, and he heaved a sigh. “Alice feared he was guilty. He could so easily have believed that if he killed poor Mr Toodle the money would come to him.”
“Do the pigmen know about this?”
“Alice was too loyal.”
“Could he have killed his daughter?” I pressed him. “To stop her talking?”
“That could be so,” Bob said reluctantly. “Alice came to my home only two evenings before she died, and I tried to persuade her to return to our Lord. Alas, she had returned to Joe instead, so she told me. She had seen him that very morning. The flesh is weak, Tom, and the Mob could have killed her for it.”
Unfortunately the Swell Mob had overheard, and Joe, a striking figure all in black, showed an unseemly fist both to me and Bob Cheery. “It’s a lie,” he snarled. “She never came back, not like that. I never touched her after you got your dirty hands on her.”
I thought of what Alice had said, one wanted her body, the other her soul. “You saw her, Joe, didn’t you?”
He glared at me. “Not to screw,” he said. “We passed the time of day, that’s all. Keep away, you creeping Jesus,” he added to Cheery who was listening to all this.
“I don’t plan to attend any more funerals with you,” Bob replied with dignity.
“Except your own,” Joe said menacingly. “Think about it.”
Bob obviously did for he hastily walked away. Joe spat on the ground. “Pretending to be saving her soul when all he wanted was to ruin her body,” he muttered.
“You still think he could have killed her?” I asked.
“Maybe,” Joe said carefully.
“Not Buzzer or Charlie?” I pressed my advantage now he was being co-operative.
“Any of us would have killed him, not her,” he growled.
But he wouldn’t meet my eye, nor would Buzzer, Charlie, or even Edie. There was something they were keeping back, and for the life of me I couldn’t see why. The Swell Mob must be protecting its own but, if so, why not put the finger well and truly on Cheery or Jacob Dear, like they’d tried to do with Micah? And then the beginnings of an idea came to me. An idea that made me feel most uneasy.
I walked over London Bridge again that night, pausing between two gas standards to look down at the Pool of London. You could hardly see the old River Thames below, there was so much shipping there; but, being dark, there wasn’t the usual throng of dockers and merchants scurrying here there and everywhere, only the occasional drunk matelot rolling back to his ship. I thought of Alice with her evil streak and her loving heart. Joe, Buzzer, Charlie and Edie all loved her in their own way, even though one of them might have killed her. So could have her father. So could Bob, if he had reason. But even if Alice had been hoping to get that case reopened, I couldn’t see it would profit Bob, and I couldn’t see he would be so set on saving her soul that he would despatch it early to our Lord.
We have many fogs in London, but the only path I could see through the one shrouding me was this one idea of mine, which explained why the Swell Mob weren’t speaking out. Suppose on Sunday evening Bob had succeeded in making Alice see the light? Suppose he had persuaded her to go to the pigmen who would dearly love to know how to lay their hands on the Mob? And then suppose all four of the Swell Mob acted together to murder her to punish her for betraying them? With four of them there she would have felt safe. They could easily have taken her through the back gateway saying they were going to the tavern, then bundled her over to the hop warehouse. The Mob sticks together. However fond they might be of Alice, they wouldn’t take betrayal lightly.
Alice’s death was a many-flued chimney, however, and some of its flues could be awkwardly horizontal. There’s just been a special cleaning machine invented for such traps, so perhaps I should use one in my hunt for the truth. What about Jacob Dear? Was he in on it with the Mob? And was Alice still pursuing that inheritance qu
estion? I’d have to talk to Bob Cheery about that. If Alice’s dad had killed Mr Toodle, then he could well be mixed up with this bag of soot; perhaps his job was to lure Alice to the hop warehouse where unknown to her the Swell Mob would be waiting.
As the fog began to lift, and the light of day arrived, I decided that I would go to see Mr Dickens, because I couldn’t sweep the Toodle flue by myself. I waited two hours before he could see me, losing a shilling for unswept chimneys while I did so. I managed to take a sleep in the basement of Tavistock House, as the housekeeper had explained her difficulty: as a visitor I should by rights have been shown into the morning room but the chairs, she said, might object to my clothes upon them.
Mr Dickens was delighted to see me. He told me excitedly that he had just begun the first instalment of his new novel, which would be published later in the year in his magazine Household Words.
“I am calling it Nobody’s Fault,” he crowed. “Is that not a splendid title? Ironic of course. It is somebody’s fault even if it is everybody’s.”
I could not follow this, and so I reminded him of Alice Dear, whose death might be several somebodies’ fault.
“Little Dorrit,” he said absently.
“Mr Toodle,” I began firmly, before he began on his novel again.
He looked surprised. “A colleague in the fight for justice in parliament. His death was a grievous blow to the cause.”
“Any suspicion how he acquired his money?”
“He was of impeccable reputation.” Mr Dickens looked shocked, then followed my drift. “Or so I have always presumed,” he amended.
“But what if he got his money by dishonest means? Say by forging or suppressing evidence.”
“Tom, this is not a matter for you,” he said kindly.
“Alice’s death is.”
“How can the two be linked?”
I hadn’t the heart to tell him Alice was part of the Swell Mob, so I pretended it could all have been Jacob Dear’s doing: he’d killed Mr Toodle, and then Alice. At first I was informed I spoke rubbish, but unwillingly he agreed to look into the matter. There were, he admitted, doubts over the efficacy of the Doctors’ Commons, and talk of replacing it with a court of probate and a secure repository for registration records.
The Mammoth Book of Dickensian Whodunnits Page 38