The Best British Mysteries 3 - [Anthology]

by Edited by Maxim Jakubowski

  We were ushered into the hallway of the house and greeted by an officer in plain clothes.

  ‘Inspector Bucket of the Detective,’ he announced and took out a large black pocket book with a band around it. He produced a pencil, licked it, and ungirdled his notebook as a prelude to interrogating us both as to the movements of the young Beckworth the day before. Neither myself nor Marx has ever had much reason to trust a gendarme of any colour, particularly those who go about in mufti, as police spies and agents provocateurs are wont to do. But this Bucket displayed none of the underhand furtiveness one associates with such fellows. Indeed he had an altogether affable manner, if a peculiarly directed energy and purpose in his questioning. Oft-times a fat forefinger of his would wag before his face, not at us, but rather at himself as if in some form of communication. This digit seemed to have a life and intelligence all of its own and Bucket looked to it as his informant.

  We learned in the course of our interview that Lord Beckworth had been found dead at the front of the main staircase that morning by the parlour maid. The upstairs rooms were in disarray and it appeared that a great quantity of alcohol and a certain amount of laudanum had been consumed. The butler Parsons was missing and his whereabouts unknown. There was one very strange clue to the death of the young lord: a small green flower, a buttonhole perhaps, was found clasped in his hand.

  Marx seemed very taken by the scientific approach of the ‘detective-officer’ and at the end of the questioning turned to Bucket and said:

  ‘If I can be of any assistance in this investigation, do let me know.’

  Bucket’s finger twitched thoughtfully.

  ‘I certainly will, sir,’ he replied jovially. ‘I certainly will.’

  ‘Why did you say that?’ I demanded of my friend when we were away from the house. ‘We certainly don’t want to have much to do with the police, do we?’

  ‘My dear Engels, I have a strange fascination with this case and feel sure I could apply my own skills and methods in investigating it.’

  ‘But Marx, what possible qualifications do you have in the field of criminology?’

  ‘I have spent my life trying to solve the greatest crime committed by and against humanity. Surely I can bring some of this intelligence to bear on what, in comparison, is a mere misdemeanour.’

  He was, of course, referring to his definitive work on the political economy. His great case, if you like. But I feared that this was yet another excuse for him to be diverted from his historic task. Decades had passed since its outset and yet he had only completed the first part of Capital. Alas, I have grown used to so many excuses for the non-completion of the work. I had no idea why his great mind might be stimulated in pursuing this particular distraction, what was to become known as ‘The Case of the Ten Lords a-Leaping’, but I suggested to him that it was perhaps the supposed supernatural aspect of it that provoked him so.

  ‘You may be somewhat affronted by the use of phantasmagoria,’ I chided him. ‘But wasn’t it you yourself that described communism as a spectre haunting Europe?’

  ‘Now, now,’ my friend reproached me. ‘Let us stick to the facts. But first let us retire into this tavern here.’

  ‘Isn’t it a bit early?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he whispered furtively. ‘But I fear we are being followed.’

  My colleague and I had long been sensitive to the attention of police spies and government agents. Once safely inside the pub there was a brief appraisal as to who our pursuer might be in the pay of. My friend was of the opinion that his movements were far too subtle to be that of a Prussian.

  ‘You mean that he might be from Scotland?’ I demanded.

  ‘Perhaps,’ muttered Marx, stroking his beard thoughtfully.

  ‘Then that is all the more reason for staying away from this unpleasant business. We must not unnecessarily provoke the attentions of any government institution.’

  But Marx was having none of it. It has been my experience that despite his rather chaotic approach to his work, once my friend becomes obsessed with something it is invariably impossible to dissuade him from a complete involvement in it.

  ‘Now,’ he went on. ‘The manservant Parsons, he seems under suspicion, does he not?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘And did you notice anything strange about the butler?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘In his appearance. Would you say he was English?’

  I remember the swarthy looks of Parsons, a peculiar accent.

  ‘No,’ I replied.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Er, Jewish?’ I ventured tentatively, knowing of my friend’s sensitivities.

  ‘I thought so at first, yes. But did you notice the strange tie-pin that he wore?’

  ‘I can’t say that I did, no.’

  ‘A curious device. I’ve seen the emblem before. A black M embossed on a red background. I’ve seen it struck on medallions and tokens commemorating Garibaldi’s “Thousand”.’

  ‘You mean Parsons is an Italian?’

  ‘Yes. And I suggest that Parsons is not his real name. Here is my theory: he was a Red Shirt with Garibaldi in the triumphant success in Sicily. After the defeat at Aspromonte, he goes into exile, and like so many of the “Thousand” finds himself an émigré in London. There he enters into the service of Lord Beckworth and adopts the name Parsons.’

  ‘But how can any of this point to a motive in the death of the young lord?’

  ‘I have no idea. But, as you know, it has always been my contention that it is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. I intend to discover more about this Parsons, or whatever his real name is. Once we have a clearer idea of his social interactions, then we might be able to deduce his intentions.’

  He stood up from the table.

  ‘Where are you going? I asked.

  ‘There is a back way from this pub. I can slip out unnoticed if you can keep our spy occupied for a while. Clerkenwell, I believe, is where most of Garibaldi’s Italians have settled. I intend to make some inquiries there. Meet me at my place tomorrow at noon.’

  * * * *

  Marx was already entertaining a visitor when I called upon him the next day, a young lady in mourning weeds. She was so shrouded in black that her face, revealed as it was beneath a veiled bonnet, seemed a half-mask of white. I do not think that I have ever seen such a deadly paleness in a woman’s face. Her eyes were speckled grey like flint, her lips a blood-crimson pout. I could not help but frown when I looked from her to my friend. Marx gave a little shrug.

  ‘This is Miss Elizabeth Cardew,’ he explained. ‘She was the fiancée of the young Lord Beckworth.’

  ‘I have been informed,’ she said to me, ‘that yourself and your esteemed colleague here were among the last people to see my beloved alive.’

  ‘The butler Parsons must have been the last,’ I reasoned.

  ‘That damnable fellow!’ she exclaimed.

  My friend and I were shocked at such an outburst and Miss Cardew’s pallor was all at once infused by a rosy flush that bloomed in her cheeks. She quickly sought to regain her composure.

  ‘I must apologise, gentlemen,’ she explained. ‘I’m sorry, but the enmity that I feel towards the man known as Parsons is so strong that I find it hard to moderate myself.’ She sighed. ‘I do believe that he had some kind of diabolical hold over my betrothed. He certainly is not the person he presents himself as.’

  ‘Indeed not,’ my colleague concurred. ‘The man employed by your husband-to-be as Gilbert Parsons was, in fact, one Gilberto Pasero, a Piedmontese fighter in Garibaldi’s “Thousand”, forced into exile in London. He worked for a while at the Telegraph Office in Cleveland Street, then after meeting with Lord Beckworth at a Radical meeting in Finsbury, was engaged in service as his gentleman’s gentleman.’

  Something like fear flashed in the expressive eyes of Miss Cardew.


  ‘How did you know...?’ she began.

  ‘I have been conducting my own investigation. Now, you say that Parsons, or rather, Pasero, had some kind of hold over Lord Beckworth. What do you mean by that?’

  ‘We had just become engaged when he took up with this dubious manservant.’

  ‘When was this?’ I interjected.

  ‘Oh,’ she thought for a moment. ‘It was over two years ago.’

  ‘A long engagement?’ I suggested.

  ‘Yes,’ she sighed, mournfully. ‘It was the curse, you see. My betrothed was terrified of it, but even more fearful of passing it on. He could not countenance the continuation of his family’s bane. He had a horror that,’ she gave a little sob, ‘in consummating our love we might pass on something so wicked and damnable.’

  She took out a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes that were now filmy with tears.

  ‘He always sought to try to understand his fate,’ she went on. ‘This led him to unconventional ideas, radical ones even. The love that I offered him seemed no consolation to his desperate temperament. Instead he seemed ever more drawn to that awful butler of his. He was enthralled in some way and I am sure that Parsons, or whatever this creature is really called, was responsible for my fiancé’s death.’

  ‘Have you informed the authorities of your suspicion?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yes, but it seems that they are following procedure without much effect. This wicked manservant must be found before it is too late.’

  ‘But where can he be?’ I demanded.

  ‘I think that I might know the answer to that,’ claimed Marx.

  The young lady looked as astonished as I felt.

  ‘What?’ I began.

  ‘Just say that my contacts among the revolutionary émigrés in Little Italy have borne much strange fruit. Now,’ he said to Miss Cardew, ‘you go home. I feel sure that we will have news of this Pasero fellow this very evening.’

  My friend saw the young lady out and then came back into his study.

  ‘Now Marx,’ I reproved him. ‘What are you up to?’

  He merely pulled out a slip of paper from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to me. Daubed with red printer’s ink on the heading were indecipherable Chinese characters and, in black copperplate below, an address in Limehouse.

  * * * *

  We took a hansom with a good horse down to the Docks that night. A skull-like moon hung low above the river, casting a jaundiced shimmer on the dark and filthy waters below. Gaslight grew thinner, the streets more narrow, as we came closer to our appointed address. We passed gloomy brick-fields, their kilns emitting a sickly light in the dripping mist. The public houses were just closing, befuddled men and women clustered in disorderly groups around the doorways. There were shrieks of awful laughter, loud oaths and raucous outbursts of brawling and disorder.

  We rattled over rough-paven streets. The roads were clogged with muck and grime. The stench of putrescence hung in the air, a wraith of dreadful contagion. Most of the windows were dark, but here and there fantastic shadows were silhouetted against some dreary lamplight like magic-lantern shows of penury and degradation. Here dwelled the sordid secrets of the Great City.

  ‘My God, Engels!’ Marx exclaimed. ‘Such squalor!’

  I was somewhat surprised that he should be so shocked at the appalling poverty we witnessed that night. But then it always amazed me that, despite my friend’s prowess in commentary and observations of conditions, his lucid approach to theoretical social analysis, he could, for the most part, be strangely inattentive and unmindful of the actual destitution that surrounds us. His detachment of thought, however, did not impair a particular attentiveness of his, no doubt born out of his many years of exile, intrigue and subterfuge, and he confided to me that he had noticed another carriage on the same trail as ours and consequently it was likely that we were once more being followed.

  The hansom drew up with a start at the top of a dark lane, nearly at the waterside. The black masts of ships rose over the squatting rooftops of the low hovels. We got out and made our way towards the quayside along a slimy pavement and found a shabby house with a flickering oil lamp above the door that illuminated the same Oriental characters that were printed on the slip of paper that Marx had shown me earlier that day.

  We knocked and were greeted by a sallow Chinaman who showed us into a long room, heavy with the sickly odour of opium, and edged with low wooden berths, like the forecast of an emigrant ship. The low flare of gaslights glowed feebly, their scant illumination diffused by the miasma of the foul-smelling drug. A group of Malays were hunched around a stove, clattering ivory tokens on a small table. Our attendant offered each of us a pipe. Hastily we demurred and proceeded to search amongst the stupefied occupants of the bunks on either side of us.

  We were watched with suspicion by the more sober patrons of that den. Harsh oaths were uttered as we moved through the room; one of the Malays looked up from the game in our direction and hissed something to his fellows in their alien tongue. I began to feel a concern for our safety, though Marx seemed quite oblivious to any danger, driven as always by his relentless curiosity.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to see what one of these places looks like,’ he commented with a quite inappropriate jocularity.

  Through the gloom we could make out contorted figures reclining in strange twisted poses; some muttered to themselves, others appeared to be in a trance, but all were possessed by a mental servitude to that merciless narcotic. In the corner a man lifted himself up from his bed and reddened eyes blinked against the vaporous light. He looked with a docile astonishment upon us, as if not sure if what he was seeing was real or a phantasm of his contorted imagination. He then gave a rasping and mirthless laugh. It was Pasero.

  ‘Ah!’ he called out to us. ‘Comrades! Citizen Marx, now you may prove the accuracy of your aphorism as to the anaesthetising effect of religion.’ He relit his pipe and taking a ghastly inhalation, held the glowing red bowl towards my friend. ‘Here is to oblivion, comrade.’

  Marx pushed the foul object away.

  ‘Oblivion from guilt?’ he demanded. ‘Is that what you seek here?’

  Pasero coughed and shook his head.

  ‘From sorrow,’ he croaked, mournfully.

  ‘Elizabeth Cardew, the fiancée of Lord Beckworth, seems convinced that you had some hold over your late master and believes that you were responsible for his death. What do you have to say to that?’ demanded my colleague.

  ‘That bitch!’ hissed Pasero. ‘It was her fault. It was she that drove him to his death.’

  ‘Explain yourself, man!’ Marx exclaimed. ‘And why you absented yourself from Beckworth’s household just after he had met his terrible fate.’

  ‘Because no one would understand. Do you think you could understand?’

  This enigmatic query was, of course, a direct provocation to the great mind of my friend. He stroked his beard, thoughtfully.

  ‘Go on,’ he insisted.

  Pasero sat up on the edge of the bunk and rubbed at his sore eyes. He sighed and shook his head, as if trying to rouse his dulled mind into some sort of coherence.

  ‘I was a young man when I joined Garibaldi’s Red Shirts,’ he began. ‘I hardly knew myself back then. But I was drawn, I know now, to the dear love of comrades. We were a band of brothers and, through danger and action, some of us could find comfort in each other, and secretly believed in that Ancient Greek ideal: that we were an army of lovers. Ah, the Thousand! A true company of men. After Aspromonte I came here in exile, lost and alone in a cold city. I tried to involve myself in the political movements like so many other émigrés, but these dull meetings with their endless arguments and empty resolutions were nothing compared to the solidarity I had known with the Thousand. Then, one night, at a Chartist gathering in Bloomsbury I met with Beckworth. He was kind and generous. Although we were from entirely different worlds we were drawn to each other and we soon discovered the desire that held us in common. We
shared another curse, as you would call it, like that of the first Lord Beckworth who was a king’s favourite. I strove to make Beckworth see it was a blessing also.’