by J. J. Durham
‘Actually,’ Mrs Wallace hesitated, ‘I wanted to speak to you about Rebecca. I doubt she’s said more than ten words to me since she’s been here. She seems terribly low-spirited.’
‘Have patience. We have no idea of the trials she may have suffered before she came to us. It may take her a little while to adapt.’
Mrs Wallace nodded. ‘There’s another thing I would like to discuss with you. The Baroness has written to recommend a parson, to visit with the girls once a week.’
‘A good thing, surely?’
‘My friend Mrs Wexford, whose cousin attends his church in Spitalfields, tells me he’s a notorious tub-thumper.’
‘Ah.’ He scratched his head. ‘That’s not so good, I must admit. Why, oh why, do charitable causes like ours always have to get tangled up with the Church? I don’t want our girls bullied in that way. Perhaps Miss Coutts might be dissuaded from this particular parson? Would you like me to write to her?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind, sir.’ Mrs Wallace looked happier.
‘Consider it done. I’ll accept the Gala invitation at the same time. Now, I have an hour to spare. Would you be so good as to fetch the account books and a pot of tea?’
When Mrs Wallace had left, Dickens smiled to himself. He was most gratified by Angela Burdett-Coutt’s invitation to the Gala. With the Major and other worthies in attendance it was the perfect opportunity to publicise their cause. And then another thought occurred to him: perhaps two birds might be killed with a single stone? The more he thought on it, the more he liked it. It was a capital idea!
CHAPTER TEN
The sitting room was small, but cosily furnished. It had an armchair, a sofa, a fire in the grate, and a plentiful supply of coal in the bucket. Pilgrim sat on the sofa.
‘I think you’ll find it comfortable enough.’ Mrs Charlotte Piper, Dolly’s cousin, watched him anxiously.
Pilgrim nodded, resisting a powerful urge to cover the lower part of his face with his hand. It was a habit he had developed as an adolescent, and had never quite grown out of – whenever he was in the presence of an attractive woman his hand would creep up, as if by its own volition, to hide his pockmarks. And there was no doubt that Mrs Piper was attractive.
She had hair the colour of wheat, gathered into a sheaf at the nape of her neck, straight black brows, and eyes as wide and grey as a Norfolk horizon. Her black bombazine mourning gown set off her figure and fresh complexion. He guessed she was in her mid-twenties. Young for a widow. He wondered how her husband had died, and whether she had loved him.
‘This room and the bedroom would be for your own personal use.’ She cut through his speculations. ‘There’s a bathhouse just across the road. I’m afraid I can’t offer cooking facilities, but I can serve a hot meal in the dining room every evening, at a time to suit.’ She gave a smile that slammed into Pilgrim like a fist. ‘All for just nine shillings a week.’
He turned away as if to review the room, but really to give himself time to regain his wits. He liked the lodgings, but didn’t need, or want, complications in his life.
‘I’ll have to think about it,’ he said. The words came out more harshly than he had intended.
‘Oh.’ It was obviously not the answer she was expecting. She frowned around the room, as if to find the cause of his displeasure. He looked away, shamed by her confusion, and looked back just in time to catch her in the act of sticking her tongue out at him.
She reddened, bit her lip, and turned away to hide her embarrassment.
A bolt of pure joy flashed through him. Surprising and inexplicable. He registered the sensation, and then squashed it. He really didn’t need complications.
‘No, I don’t think so.’
She followed him back down to the front door, two red patches branded on her cheekbones.
‘Good day, madam.’ He tipped his hat to her.
‘Is it the lack of bathing facilities?’ she blurted. ‘Or the … ?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with the rooms.’
She recoiled, as if he’d slapped her. His emphasis on the word rooms had been unintentional. Unintentional and unfortunate: there really was only one way she could interpret it. He opened his mouth to try to repair the damage, but she held up a hand to stop him.
‘You really are the most objectionable man.’ She drew herself up to her full height, and glared at him. ‘I suppose you think your disfigurement excuses your rudeness?’
‘My disfig … ?’
‘I wouldn’t rent the rooms to you now even if you begged me, begged me on your ruddy knees.’
And she slammed the door in his face.
Disfigurement? He stared at the door in disbelief. Had she really said that? His disfigurement? He didn’t know whether to laugh or break the door down. In the end he did neither, but retreated down the steps like a whipped dog.
Charley Field’s head appeared around the office door as Pilgrim took off his overcoat.
‘You’re back, Harry. Are you free next Friday evening?’
‘I think so.’
‘Do you want to check your diary?’
‘I am free. Why?’
‘How about you, Tanner?’
‘Yes, sir, I’m free.’
‘Why?’ asked Pilgrim again.
‘Mr Dickens has invited us to a reception at the Royal Academy. Quite a few bigwigs are going to be there. The Mayor, for one.’ He caught Pilgrim’s expression.
‘It’s good for the force, Harry. We rely on the goodwill of the press and the upper classes to be able to do our job properly.’
Pilgrim picked up the boy’s vest from Dolly’s desk, and made a show of looking at it.
‘Mr Dickens thinks very highly of you.’ Field glanced around. ‘Where’s Adolphus?’
‘He should be back soon.’
‘Tell him about Friday, will you? Oh, there you are.’ He stood back to let Dolly into the room.
‘What’s that about Friday, sir?’ asked Dolly.
‘A reception, hosted by the Mayor.’
‘Good for public relations, eh, sir?’
‘I’m glad someone can see the wider picture.’ Field cast a glum look at Pilgrim and left.
‘It’s not my job to see the wider picture,’ muttered Pilgrim. He was still smarting from his encounter with Charlotte Piper. His disfigurement? He turned to Dolly. ‘Have we had any news yet from the laundries?’
‘Not yet, sir. But we’ve only done fifteen so far. ’Fraid we’ve ran out of “F’s” already. And I’ve just been to Euston Square Station, but no one can remember the trunk, much less who brought it in.’
Pilgrim squinted at the mark on the vest. ‘Does that still look like an “F” to you?’ he asked Dolly.
‘Yes, sir.’
Pilgrim took the vest to the window to examine it more closely. The mark did look like an ‘F,’ but it was badly faded. The horizontal lines were not straight, but slanted. He returned to his desk and copied the mark onto a piece of paper. He considered at it for a moment, and then extended the top mark of the ‘F’ backwards. It looked much less like an ‘F’ now.
Dolly, meanwhile, was rummaging through Pilgrim’s pile of fan mail.
‘You still haven’t looked at these, sir.’ He picked up a couple, and sniffed one. ‘This one’s from a lady. And this one’s foreign. It has a fancy stamp.’
Pilgrim looked up from the piece of paper. ‘What did you say?’
‘It has a fancy stamp.’
Pilgrim stared at the paper again, and then dashed to Tanner’s desk. He found the valise he had opened for Tanner earlier, and dragged it out from under the desk.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ said Tanner.
Pilgrim ignored him, and knelt to examine the labels on the valise. One was for Shanghai, written in both English and Chinese. He stared at the Chinese characters and then compared them with the mark on his paper.
‘It’s not an “F” at all. Get your overcoat, Dolly.’
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Limehouse was a part of the city unfamiliar to Pilgrim. Behind the respectable houses fronting the shipyards on the North bank of the river lay a warren of warehouses and smaller streets, housing businesses that catered for the sailors landing at the West India docks. Part of this warren was Pennyfields, an area considered out of bounds by other East Enders, and by the police, who left the exotic residents largely to their own devices. But it was there that Pilgrim knew he would find what he was looking for.
They hadn’t gone more than a hundred yards into the tenements, when he nudged Dolly, ‘That’ll do.’ He nodded at a battered wooden door that stood at the mouth of the alley. It had Chinese symbols written on it in chalk and below them the words ‘Laundry by hand’. He pushed open the door.
The warmth hit them immediately, and steam billowed out to escape into the frosty air. Dolly’s eyes grew round as he followed Pilgrim into a vaulted, windowless room, lit by torches. Clouds of steam rose from vast tubs of boiling water, heated with fires beneath. Dripping sheets, nightgowns, long johns, and blankets were hung from a series of ropes and pulleys from the ceiling. A dozen Chinamen, all with pigtails, were hard at work, some carrying baskets filled with clothes, others sweating over the vats, stirring them with paddles.
The two detectives attracted stares. An old man, dressed in a calico tunic with wide sleeves, approached them through the steam. He was stooped and wrinkled, but his eyes were sharp. He bowed.
‘May I help you, Uncles?’
Pilgrim took the vest from his pocket. ‘Can you tell me whose mark this is?’ As the old man looked at it, two of the younger Chinese men peered over his shoulder, squinting at the mark in the dim light. Suddenly one of the young men threw up his hands.
‘Ha!’ He seized the vest and threw it onto the floor. He was about to stamp on it when Dolly snatched it up again.
‘What the devil are you doing? That’s Her Majesty’s evidence, that is.’ He squared up to the young man, his face red. ‘I should arrest you for that!’
The youth shouted something in Chinese and squared up to Dolly.
‘Constable Williamson.’ Pilgrim’s rebuke was soft, but effective.
Dolly backed off.
The old man spoke sharply in Chinese. Whatever he said had an immediate effect: both of the young men slunk away.
Pilgrim frowned. ‘I don’t understand. Is that your mark?’
‘It is not. It is “cow under a roof”.’
‘Cow? Speak plainly!’ Dolly’s patience had worn thin. Pilgrim glared at him, and he blushed.
The old man didn’t seem to be offended. ‘Cow under a roof is the sign for prison, young sir. Millbank Prison. Since my old friend Ho Chi went to oversee the laundry there they have been running it as a commercial enterprise. We have lost much custom.’
Dolly snatched the vest and marched out.
‘Thank you for your help, sir,’ said Pilgrim. He made to follow Dolly, but the old man grabbed his wrist.
‘A word with you, Uncle, before you go to remonstrate with your young colleague.’
Pilgrim tried to free his wrist, but couldn’t. The old man was stronger than he looked.
‘Something bad has passed close to you.’ His expression was earnest. ‘You saw it, but did not truly see. It will come again.’
Pilgrim succeeded in wrenching his arm away, and joined Dolly, who had been watching from the doorway.
‘What did the yellow devil want with you, sir?’
‘Nothing. And he’s a man, Dolly.’ He glanced back at the old man, who was still staring at him through the steam. ‘Just a man.’
They didn’t see a Hackney carriage until they were well outside of Pennyfields, at the west end of Poplar High Street. Pilgrim hailed it.
‘Millbank Prison, via Holborn,’ he called to the driver.
Inside the cab, both men sat in silence with their thoughts. Dolly was still red from his altercation in the laundry, and Pilgrim guessed he was embarrassed. Pilgrim, too, was more shaken than he cared to admit. What had the old man meant by his cryptic warning? Something bad had passed close to him? That was hardly surprising, in his line of work, and yet … the experience had left him with a strangely disconnected feeling.
Charley Field accosted him as soon as he got back to Whitehall.
‘Have you got a minute, Harry?’
‘Is there a problem?’
‘In a manner of speaking. Come into my office.’
Hector Fairweather was waiting for them. Pilgrim couldn’t remember ever seeing the pathologist outside of St Bartholomew’s, so he guessed that whatever news he brought must be serious.
‘Tell him, Hector,’ said Field.
Fairweather came straight to the point. ‘Johannes Appler didn’t kill himself. He was murdered.’
‘How do you know?’ asked Pilgrim.
‘It wasn’t obvious, at first. It seemed a pretty straightforward case, although suicide by that method is relatively rare. The cause of death was blood loss, caused by the severance of the carotid artery. The incision was consistent with self-infliction, more elevated on the left-hand side than on the right. The depth of the wound, however, was unexpected, as was the lack of hesitation marks. That made me curious. When I inspected the rest of the body, I found three more cuts, small but deep: one on the pad of the left thumb, and two more between the second and third knuckles on the right-hand middle finger and ring finger. Defensive wounds. They made me go back and look again at the fatal incision, but I couldn’t see anything else to make me question my original conclusion.’
‘Appler was left-handed,’ said Pilgrim. ‘I noticed it when he was signing the paperwork after his arrest.’
Field threw a look of triumph at Fairweather. ‘I told you he’d have spotted it.’ He looked back at Pilgrim. ‘I noticed it myself when I was questioning him.’
The pathologist’s expression was sombre. ‘Of course, when Charley told me, it changed everything,’ he said. ‘If Appler had cut his own throat the incision would have been more elevated on the right hand side than on the left. Someone cut his throat from behind and it wasn’t an easy kill. My guess is that Appler realized what was happening and grabbed at his assailant. He cut his hands on the razor in the struggle.’
‘Someone got into Appler’s cell and murdered him,’ said Field. ‘But why? And how?’
‘The keys were missing,’ said Pilgrim. ‘Phelps opened the cell with his spare set. We should ask him whether he ever found the originals.’
‘I don’t want to reopen the case officially,’ said Field, ‘for obvious reasons.’
Pilgrim could certainly see why. It would not only raise questions about Appler’s guilt, but also make a laughing stock of the police force. Whitehall was the very heart of law enforcement in the city. The fact that someone had broken into a cell, committed a murder, and then succeeded in getting out again without detection would cause outrage. Questions would be asked. Heads would roll. He could guess what was coming next, and didn’t like it.
‘I want you to look into it, Harry. I know I can trust you to do it discreetly.’
Dolly was waiting for him when he returned to the office.
‘Good news from the Millbank laundry, sir. They recognize the vest and the neckerchief. They do a collection from that customer once a fortnight. She lives in Camberwell.’ He handed Pilgrim a scrap of paper. ‘Hard by the slums, sir, around St Giles. Do you know it?’
Pilgrim turned on his heel and walked back out of the room without answering. Dolly blinked after him. After a moment Pilgrim’s face reappeared around the door.
‘What are you waiting for?’ he snapped.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Dolly knocked on the peeling front door of a house in the middle of the terrace. The houses were black with soot and many of the windows boarded up, or stuffed with rags. Inside the house he could hear children playing and the thin cry of a baby. After an interval where nothing seemed to be happening, a skinny girl of thirteen o
r so threw open the door. She gave Pilgrim and Dolly a look of frank curiosity, and then turned to shout back into the house.
‘Ma! Couple of gents for you.’ She vanished back into the passage, to be replaced by an older woman. Her mother had a worn, undernourished look, although her gown and apron were clean. A half-naked toddler clung to her skirts.
‘Mrs Johnston?’ enquired Dolly.
She nodded, her eyes flicking from Dolly to Pilgrim and back again.
Dolly continued. ‘We’re from the Metropolitan Police. We would appreciate your help.’
There was no change in Mrs Johnston’s expression. In the absence of any acknowledgment or encouragement, Dolly ploughed on. ‘Do you recognize this undervest?’
She barely glanced at the vest before shaking her head.
‘How about this?’ He showed her the spotted neckerchief that had been used to strangle the boy in the box.
‘No.’
‘Look at it more closely.’ He pressed it into her hand.
She thrust it back at him as if it might burn her. ‘Never seen it before.’
The boy clinging to her skirts gave a whimper of protest and squirmed away. There were fingermarks on his shoulder.
‘That’s very peculiar, Mrs Johnston,’ started Dolly, ‘for you see … ’
‘There’s obviously been some mistake,’ cut in Pilgrim. ‘We beg your pardon.’ He tipped his hat to the woman and led a baffled Dolly away. The door banged shut.
Pilgrim steered Dolly into the mouth of an alleyway at the end of the street.
‘She’s lying,’ protested Dolly.
‘Of course she is. But there’s no point putting her on her guard. If she comes out before I get back, follow her.’
‘You’re going to leave me here? On my own?’
‘You’ll be fine. Just stay in the shadows, and watch the house.’
From the mouth of the alley they could clearly see Mrs Johnston’s door. But Dolly wasn’t happy. ‘What if she goes out a back way?’
‘These houses have no back entrance.’
Dolly looked sharply at him.