Children of the Tide

by Jon Redfern

  “Rum-gull,” mumbled Sergeant Smeets. “Why I ’ave to wear fetters in this bog?”

  “Irons,” replied the inspector, “are a necessity, Sergeant, for keeping both prisoner and guard at ease.”

  “Cheeky git you are,” came the sergeant’s reply. He was sober, now. His eyes were ringed with dark circles. His ankles had been washed and bandaged and his hands no longer resembled those of a coal carrier’s.

  “Sergeant, I read in your release papers that you were stationed at Dumfries, just north of the Scottish border.”

  “Wot of it?”

  “Sixteen days ago you were discharged after a lashing. Given two shillings as leave pay.” Endersby held the papers up while reading them by lantern light. He folded the soiled sheets and put them away in his pocket for the time being.

  “Enough fer drink, Bobby.”

  “You made good time walking from Dumfries to London. All effort for the sole purpose of finding your daughter.”

  “None of that be yer business, rum-dog. Splittin’ wenches is all I cares about,” the sergeant said, his leering smile showing a number of lost front teeth. Endersby had instructed a constable to bring food and there was evidence on the bench of a half-eaten lump of bread. Sergeant Smeets wiped his eyes and lay down on the bench, stretching out his legs and placing his head on his folded-up frock coat.

  “A fine frock coat, Sergeant. A better fit than your tunic?” questioned the inspector. Endersby was now leaning his frame against one of the stone walls, his face in shadow.

  “Won at cards, pup,” came the tired reply.

  “How so, Sergeant? You claimed you lost musket and scabbard at cards. How came you to procure a coat of such good weave?”

  “Killed a man-slag for it,” the sergeant then said, his voice low and lazy.

  “I presume your murder of the man took place after he had removed his coat?”

  “Ha, sir. A wise goat you are.”

  “No blood on it. No sign of musket powder. Or perhaps I am being a fool,” Endersby said, playing his game of questions. “Of course, you were more clever than I first thought. You, sergeant, strangled the gull once he was in his cups. Took the coat right off his back.”

  “Hi ho, Bobby-dog. Such a tale-spinner you are. I killed ’im with bare hands and a knife and my musket, all for a weave. A good’un!” The sergeant’s voice had fallen into a whisper. He was beginning to doze and Endersby feared he might lose his attention. On impulse, Endersby leapt out of the shadows. He grabbed hold of the sergeant’s shirt front, lifted him up to sitting position and shook him vigorously.

  “Murder, Sergeant. You have admitted to a crime of great import. Drawing, lashing and hanging await you. Now speak up, where did this happen? I will trace it down if I must. I will send constables into the cities where you stopped and enquire of gravediggers and police officers about a strangled man.”

  The sergeant tried to break free. Endersby shook him again. He slapped the sergeant’s left cheek. He hauled him up to his feet. Nose to nose he stood, fighting the soldier’s stinking breath. The sergeant began to cough, forcing Endersby to hold him at arm’s length. Once again, the inspector shook Smeets, this time until his coughing let up.“Gull, dog, wot do it matter?” sputtered Sergeant Smeets. “I killed ‘im. Or I didn’t kill’im. All the same to me.”

  “You, sir, are a liar. Jests are but forms of lies,” Endersby hissed, his “demon familiar” rising, his fists ready to strike. Wisely, the inspector took a breath. Chin raised, he let his body and anger calm. No more fisticuffs, he warned himself. “Where did the killing of this man take place?” Endersby asked, letting Smeets go. The soldier sat down. He shrugged. He then began to rub his head with his hands and rock back and forth. Here again was this agitated action of remorse Endersby had witnessed earlier at St. Pancras.

  “What is the matter, Sergeant?” Endersby asked. The sergeant wailed: “I shall die now. I will die and ne’er see my sweet one again.” Endersby sat down on the bench beside the sergeant. One of his methods of investigation was to unsettle his captives by showing them first brutal authority then brotherly kindness. Such an approach often placated the criminal mind, Endersby would argue. Reaching out, Endersby squeezed the sergeant’s shoulder. Bending forward, Endersby could see fear and doubt in Smeets’s eyes. Would this give way at last to a truthful confession?

  Endersby remained quiet beside the rocking man. After a moment’s reflection, the inspector considered the discharge papers: these were proof of Sergeant Smeets’s whereabouts in the last two weeks, given the state of the man’s boots and his haggard appearance. Taking a new tack, Endersby instead showed Smeets one of the letters written by his daughter to her uncle.

  “Glance at this, sergeant,” Endersby said. Smeets sat up and took hold of the letter.

  “Well, what do you make of it?” Endersby said.

  The soldier looked bewildered; he turned the letter over a few times, peering at the writing and tracing out some of the words with his finger. “I ain’t no letter writer. Canna read much beyond a dot.”

  “Allow me to read to you what I have.” Endersby took the letter and bent close to the lantern. He read the contents out loud, slowly, emphasizing each single word.

  “Ow, ow,” the sergeant moaned, remorse filling his throat. Smeets sat up boldly. Endersby finished by repeating the last two words: “Your Catherine.”

  “T’was my temper, Bobby, that done it,” the sergeant said. He wiped his eyes. Endersby noted again the man’s capacity for tender feeling.

  “How do you mean, Sergeant?” Endersby asked, folding the letter.

  “He was my dead wife’s brother. A good fellah. Good to my sweet Catherine. We all lived in the village near Frogmore. He struck me one night for hittin’ my own daughter. I was a looby lout. All he wanted was to protect her. I was jealous of ’im. I charged ’im with hittin’ me, a sergeant of Her Majesty’s. Arrested he was. Poor gull. T’was him taught my little one to read.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Sentenced to the prison ships, the hulks. The judge sent ’im off to Australia. Gone forever. Or dead of fever.” Endersby knew the hulks were pitiless places. Old navy ships refurbished to house felons since the land prisons were overflowing. The prisoners were sent to work on canals and roads where many died of disease.

  “Could a man escape the hulks, Sergeant?” Endersby’s question hung in the air.

  “Not him. Too frail he’d be. He’d die soon enough like some starved dog. Poor scag, he and my wife raised in a filthy workhouse. He ne’er forgot that place.”

  “When was the uncle condemned to the hulks, Sergeant?” the inspector asked.

  “Christmas last.”

  “Did your daughter Catherine know anyone in London, Sergeant?”

  The poor man resumed rocking. “I left her here. All alone. God curse me, sir.” Endersby waited for a moment: “Is your daughter a strong girl, Sergeant. Will she survive on the streets?”

  The sergeant gazed into the dark emptiness of the cell. “Please, find her, gull. Rotten I am, but I’d do anything for my sweet.” Through the flickering lantern light, Endersby looked hard at the broken man. Words of Prince Hamlet jumped into the inspector’s mind: a countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

  “You say you’d do anything, Sergeant. For your daughter.”

  “Yes, gull. Anything.”

  “Does killing come easy to you, Sergeant? You are a trained soldier. Do you find it a simple act to accomplish?”

  “Wot you mean?”

  “If you saw, say, Matron Pickens, the tall woman you met today at St. Pancras. Let us picture her beating your Catherine. Hurting her, making her ...”

  “I’d cut her slaggy throat. Choke her if she give me reason.”

  “Have you ever been in a workhouse, Sergeant? Ever there as a child?”

  “But once. For a fortnight when a lad. Them matrons were demons. The scags gave the whip every morning and night if you spilled a
bit of porridge.”

  “Can you remember Tuesday last, Sergeant. Where you were? At night, what did you do?

  “Sleepin’, gull. You try settin’ foot after foot for a fortnight, livin’ on bits of bread and drippin’.”

  “When did you start to look for Catherine?”

  The sergeant fell silent. He began to enter the trance-like state Endersby had seen moments before as if it were a recurring fever in one afflicted by consumption.

  “Sergeant?”

  “Leave me be, Bobby-gull. I can take no more. I killed the fellow, I killed ’em all, if that be the truth you want to hear.”

  Realizing he had come to a standstill with the sergeant, Endersby decided to allow the fellow a moment of peace. He paced as the sergeant lay back, exhausted, on the bench. A tap, and in the doorway, at attention, was Sergeant Caldwell. “Half hour, sir.” The inspector walked quickly toward his sergeant. “Carry on with this suspect, Sergeant. Here, take one of these pieces of lace. Show it to him. Ask if he knows of Rosemary Lane. He is tiring. Bring him some hot coffee. Push him. He needs a new voice to keep him awake. Get more about the uncle, especially his full true name if the man can remember it. He is a hard one, Caldwell. I have not as yet nudged him into a confession. I shall go to Mr. Grimsby.”

  “Beware, sir,” cautioned Mr. Caldwell. “Grimsby is a fighting fellow. Denies everything. He is open to suspicion and yet, sir, there is remorse in his voice. He seems a man playing a part.”

  “I thank you, Sergeant, for your warnings. I will stoke the engine, full steam ahead!”

  “Thank you, sir,” smiled Mr. Caldwell.

  Endersby walked a few paces. He let his mind take a rest on the present maze of thoughts about Sergeant Smeets. Forming a plan, he entered the cell where Grimsby was confined. Young Grimsby sat on the edge of the prison bench inside his dim cell. He was wearing a stained frock coat, his face covered in stubble, his scar like a stretch of red ribbon flowing across his face. Endersby introduced himself and asked the young man to give his name.

  “Grimsby, sir, Geoffrey. Son of Richard Grimsby, undertaker, in Marylebone. What the devil have I done to place me here, sir? I demand you call for my father at once.”

  “To answer your first question, Mr. Grimsby, you have been arrested on suspicion of murder. Second, your father has been sent for and may arrive at any moment.”

  “Preposterous,” chimed young Grimsby. His breath smelled of gin. “Never raise my hand to touch a bee nor a fly for that matter.”

  “Neither bees nor flies are the law’s concern, Mr. Grimsby,” came the inspector’s sharp reply. “Rather, we are more concerned with the death of two elderly women, strangled to death by a villain in the night.”

  “How deedo?” smirked Grimsby. “None of my taste, sir. The sordid underworld of Bow Street is beneath my purview.”

  “Indeed, sir?”

  Young Grimsby sat forward and rubbed his forehead. Endersby looked into his face. “You have a scar, sir,” he said. “How did it come about?”

  “A tree branch. Cut me while riding.”

  “On Tuesday last, where did you spend your time?”

  “I refuse to be badgered, Inspector. I wish to speak with my father.”

  “Two women were murdered, Mr. Grimsby. Brutally, in fact. One in the St. Giles Workhouse and the other in Shoe Lane.”

  “Never been there, not in my life. Oh, yes, once to Bethnall Green Workhouse to fetch a boy for our mute. Sickly one he was. Scummy places, Inspector.”

  “It would suit your present situation to tell me about your comings and goings on Tuesday last, Mr. Grimsby. I suggest you try and remember.”

  Grimsby coughed. He stood up. “You remind me of my mammy, Inspector. Always at it, always wanting to know who I know, where I go. Cannot a young man have his pleasures without endless questioning?”

  “Murder is what we are speaking about in this instance, Mr. Grimbsy. A hanging matter in deed and in outcome,” Endersby quipped.

  “Betrayed I was, Tuesday night last,” Grimsby began. “To the gin house, then to my Hilda. Then out into the street with a firm shove from her wicked mother.”

  “And then?”

  Young Grimsby laughed. He shrugged his shoulders. “Cold on Tuesday late, as I recall.”

  Endersby could see the man was fearful. But he was holding back. What secret was he not willing to reveal? “Hilda?” Endersby said, prompting the bedraggled young man. Grimsby raised his face. “This be a sordid den, sir. Too damp for my liking.” Grimsby kicked the floor with his cracked boot. He looked toward the cell door, which stood open behind the inspector. A young constable was standing by it and with him in shadow was another gentleman with a top hat and a cane.

  “Father?” cried young Grimsby. Inspector Endersby turned and commanded the constable to come in with the other gentleman.

  “Good day, Inspector,” said the elder Mr. Grimsby. “A fine place for you, son, I see,” he said, his voice hard with sarcasm.

  “Father, sir, this lot have me caught up for murder. A lark, sir. A false accusation,” pleaded young Grimsby. Endersby noted immediately how young Grimsby had changed. Indeed, it seemed he was playing a series of parts, like an actor in repertory. How well he could show disdain; how masterful his sudden switch to pleading. And yet the inspector also noted a vulnerable air about him.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” Endersby said to the elder Mr. Grimsby. “Your son was arrested on suspicion only. His appearance matched precisely to that of a culprit who we believe is running loose in London, having killed innocent women in two workhouses.”

  “A new sport of yours, son?” the stone-faced father replied. “Gin addled your senses, then? Forced you to indulge in greater violence to drive you further into crime and cruelty?”

  “Father?” young Grimsby wailed. “Father, please help me. You know I am not ...” The young man’s eyes were full of sadness. The father, in response, lowered his head so as not to show the flicker of emotion distorting his features. Endersby wondered if this were a case of “like father, like son.” Was the father also playing a part at this moment, straining to hide his real self?

  “My son, sir,” the elder Grimsby said turning his attention toward the inspector. “My young Geoffrey is a reprobate. His character does not speak well of my own efforts to raise him properly. I offer you and your professional colleagues an apology. My whipping cane, sadly, has had no effect whatsoever.”

  Endersby considered the man’s hard words. Was this a jest, perhaps? More ominously, were these words to be understood as a father’s condemnation of his own flesh and blood?

  “Capable of murder, you believe, sir?” Endersby said, his voice cool. Mr. Richard Grimsby did not flinch. “Foolhardiness leads to a decadent state of mind,” the father replied. He then turned to his son. “Empty your pockets, sir. On the double.” Young Grimsby was shaking. He tore into his pants pockets and turned them out. The same procedure was applied to his frock coat, pockets both on the inside and the outside.

  “Where is the licence I sent with you to the workhouse?” enquired the older man. “Where is the two pounds I trusted you to carry to procure a child to play the mute for our processions?”

  “Lost, Father,” the young Grimsby replied, his low tone full of contrition.

  “Not lost, son. Tossed by you, both the license and coin into the hands of a gin seller.”

  “No, Father, no,” the young man said. He sat down. Shoulders forward, a short series of sobs started gurgling in his throat. The elder Grimsby stepped close to his son and reached out his hand. He was about to touch him, but then he stepped back. It seemed to Endersby, the older man was torn between disdain and compassion.

  “What would you have me do, Inspector?” the elder Grimsby then said. “I know so little of this scalliwag’s adventures. He was refused by Her Majesty’s military service on account of his weak foot. I am at a loss.” As he spoke, the elder Grimsby moved closer to Inspector Endersby. He leane
d toward the inspector and said: “There is a matter I best speak to you about out of my son’s earshot. If you will indulge me, sir?”

  “Indeed, sir,” Endersby replied. He showed the older man out and followed him into the corridor. Young Grimsby stood up frantically and dashed toward the door: “Father, you are a brute, a stingy cruel old man!” he shouted. The constable caught young Grimsby as he tried to bolt out the door. “Keep him under lock and key for the time being,” commanded Endersby.

  “Father! Father? Oh where is my mammy?”

  “Come, Mr. Grimsby. We may speak in the offices upstairs.”

  The older Grimsby nodded in assent. He had grown ashen as a consequence of the encounter with his son. “Are you feeling ill, sir?” Endersby asked. The older man took hold of the inspector’s arm for support. “I am ill at heart, sir. Most perturbed! I cannot stay and witness this scene a moment longer. Please, take me into the open air or I may fall prone at your feet.”

  “Constable, kindly lead this gentleman upstairs to my office.” At the same moment, another young constable arrived from the far end of the stone corridor. He stood at attention in front of Endersby.

  “Yes, Constable,” the inspector said.

  “Sir, following your orders. We have secured a gentleman earlier this morning who closely resembles the description of the culprit you have set down in your description.”

  “Another?” said Endersby. “Indeed. Lead on, Constable.”

  Following the young man down the corridor, Endersby came to one of the wooden doors which the constable swung open. Taking up a lantern, Endersby stepped into the cell. In front of him was a man sitting in ragged clothes, with filthy hands, the air about him full of human stink.

  “Your name, sir?” Endersby commanded, lifting up the lantern to grasp a better view of the man’s dirt-covered features. He could see the face, shadowed by a soiled hat. It was hard in the lantern light to determine if the mark upon the face was a scar or a defect in the left cheek.

  “Lardle, sir,” came the croaky response. “Mr. Henry Lardle. At your service.”