Death at Hungerford Stairs

by J C Briggs

  ‘My son, Theo. This is Mr Dickens, and Superintendent Jones from Bow Street. They are making enquiries about a shawl which belonged to grandmother.’

  Sam spoke quickly. He wanted to gauge the young man’s reaction, and Dickens knew that it was his role to observe.

  ‘The shawl may be an important clue in a crime I am investigating.’

  Dickens watched as Theo’s eyes flickered towards him. Green eyes like his mother’s and sister’s, but veiled, not innocent. Theo did not look at Sam. He seemed to force himself to address Dickens.

  ‘I am glad to meet you, sir. Of course, I know your books.’ He glanced up the stairs. They knew he wanted to go.

  ‘Do you remember the shawl, Mr Outfin?’ Sam insisted.

  Theo glanced at it. ‘No, it means nothing to me.’ He did not look at them.

  ‘Your father wishes to see you, Theo. He will be in the library now.’ Mrs Outfin spoke gently, filling in the awkward pause. But Dickens noticed the faint red that flushed at her neck and jaw.

  ‘Not now, Mother. I must go upstairs to change. I have an appointment to keep.’ He went, taking the stairs swiftly, passing a maid as he ascended. But he did not look at her. Mrs Outfin watched him, and Dickens saw how anxious she was, and how, when she turned back to them, she switched on her smile.

  ‘I am sorry we could not have been more helpful.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Outfin. You have given us valuable information. We may be able to trace the shawl, now.’ Sam was polite. Neither Dickens nor he betrayed any trace of the curiosity they felt about her son.

  They went out into the quiet street, walking in silence until they were well away from the house. They stood looking through the iron railings into the private garden which was empty of nursemaids and their charges on this gloomy November day. A solitary man stood coatless with his top hat pushed back on his head, staring at the darkening sky. What was he reading in the louring heavens? For what sign was he looking? Dickens and Jones gazed up, too. But there was nothing – only a faint pinprick that might have been a star, but no answer to their fears.

  ‘I hope not,’ said Dickens, still looking at the motionless figure.

  ‘You hope Theo Outfin is not our man?’

  Dickens turned to look at Sam. His face was grave. ‘For the sake of that innocent girl and for Oliver Wilde. And for Mrs Outfin. The scandal would destroy them all.’

  ‘Yet, you observed his manner and you felt Outfin’s uneasiness, and Mrs Outfin seemed anxious. There was tension in that house, something unspoken. They are afraid of something. The boy, perhaps, a source of that fear?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. But his glance at the shawl, his dismissal of it might have been simply indifference. He might have something else on his mind, but if he is our murderer –’

  The word seemed to freeze in the air. It was almost as if they could read it there before them, and all its implications for the Outfins.

  ‘Let us not get ahead of ourselves, Charles,’ said Sam. ‘He’d have to have amazing self-possession if he had left that shawl at the scene of the crime and was able to reveal nothing but indifference when he saw it in the hands of a policeman from Bow Street. Nevertheless, we will remain interested in him. As we have said before, the shawl may have nothing to do with the murder.’

  ‘I could meet Oliver Wilde to offer my congratulations about his marriage. I might ask about the family. He might know what is troubling the boy. I sense tension between him and his father. Theo didn’t want to see him, and Mrs Outfin is obviously the one in the middle.’

  ‘A good idea. I would like to exclude him.’

  ‘What about the shawl? Ought we to follow up the housekeeper at Cricklewood?’

  ‘We must – there’s a chance that she will remember how she disposed of it, but I am not hopeful. Still, she might be able to tell us something about the family. Now, it’s too cold to be standing about here, let us go to see Scrap, and set him to work on the history of Robin Hart.’

  Scrap was out on an errand when Dickens and Jones arrived at the Crown Street shop. Mr Brim was behind his counter; he looked well enough though he was gaunt. He greeted his visitors with a smile though Dickens thought he discerned strain there as if Mr Brim was worried about something.

  ‘Scrap should be back soon. He is out delivering – I have a good many orders thanks to you, Mr Dickens. And your wife is here, Superintendent, giving Eleanor a lesson with Tom listening in. Poll is with them – she is not too keen on going out just now.’ He smiled, more easily this time. ‘We are not letting her out of our sight, either.’

  The bell rang as the door opened to bring in Scrap. ‘Wotcher, Mr Dickens,’ he said cheerfully. ‘An’ you, Mr Jones.’

  ‘I have a job for you,’ said the superintendent.

  Scrap grinned. ‘If Mr Brim can spare me.’ Scrap was proud of his responsibilities and of his being needed.

  ‘You can do it between deliveries, Scrap, if that is all right, Mr Brim.’ Mr Brim nodded. ‘We are trying to find out about a boy, Robin Hart.’

  ‘Murdered weren’t ’e? I ’eard yer found ’im in St Giles’s. Want me to find out ’oo knew ’im? ’Oo ’e went about with?’

  ‘Yes, but be careful, Scrap – talk to the street boys. And, there is another boy we need to know about. A boy called Jemmy, possibly Jemmy Kidd. We don’t know if he was from here at all, but if you hear anything about a boy of that name, it could be useful.’

  ‘Right, Mr Jones – I’ll be careful. I knows ’oo to ask, don’t yer fret none.’

  Elizabeth came out with Eleanor, Tom and Poll who threw herself at Scrap – the hero who had rescued her.

  ‘How are you enjoying your lessons, Eleanor?’ asked Dickens.

  The usually grave little girl gave him the smile that transformed her face. ‘I love them – and Tom enjoys his, too, don’t you, Tom.’

  Tom frowned. ‘I think so – I do like the letters, but I like the pictures better.’

  They all laughed. Dickens said, ‘Have you seen the archer – what did he do?’

  ‘A is for archer, and shot at a frog. And apple pie too,’ cried Tom. ‘Apple pie is my favourite.’

  Sam and Elizabeth watched Dickens sit Tom on the counter. He was very good with children, able to enter into their world, understanding their childish fears. Here they saw him drawing out the little boy, making learning a game. He took him through the verse for B about the bee in his hive, the one for C, and then, improvising to Tom’s delight, Dickens taught him a new one for D.

  D was a dog,

  And Poll was her name.

  So bold and so clever,

  That wide was her fame.

  Poll was delighted too and barked at Dickens approvingly. Of course, it had to be said again and again until everyone but Tom and Poll wished they could move on to E, F and G. Then it was time to return to Bow Street to review the evidence, and as Dickens put it, to discipline their thoughts like a regiment, putting each soldier into his rightful place.

  ‘On, on, we noble English,’ he declaimed as they walked back. ‘I will send a note to Wilde this evening.’

  11

  CAT’S HOLE

  Secrets. Behind every murder there were secrets. Secrets concealed like stolen goods buried deep, but still on the conscience. Secrets, thought Dickens, as he walked home after he and Sam had reviewed the evidence. Murder was composed of secrets just as any three-volume novel. Secrets were the staple of the novelist; they provided the mystery, suspense and tension. In murder, the identity of the protagonist was secret, the characters in the story – for murder was itself a terrible story – possessed secrets, sometimes harmless ones, sometimes ones that were the key to the mystery, and it was the investigators who must uncover those secrets, and, this was dreadful, too; they must lay bare the lives of all enmeshed in the net of the murderer’s making. Horrible, thought Dickens, who had secrets of his own, a hidden life about which he had spoken only to John Forster, his closest friend, and that hidden life
was connected to the blacking factory where the boy Jemmy had been found in his mud coffin.

  Theo Outfin had a secret, Dickens was sure; a secret, perhaps, which tainted the air of that respectable house, the secret that caused so much unease in his parents. And the shawl? Who had dropped it there in the churchyard? Who was the secret visitor seen at Mademoiselle Victorine’s? What secrets were hidden in those dull eyes behind the thick lenses? Who was the toff seen with the victims? And, this was a thought, what secrets did the victims have that brought about their deaths? Sam had said that often the key to the murder lay in the victims’ own lives – it had been true of Patience Brooke. But these boys scarcely had any lives to speak of. Yet, did they know the young gentleman who had lured them to the blacking factory and the churchyard of St Giles? And had their knowledge of him killed them? Did the killer feel his secret murders sticking on his hands? And, most dreadful of all the questions – would he strike again? Only he knew that secret, a chilling thought that set Dickens quickening his pace along Regent Street which took him away from the blind courts and alleys where Scrap was even now pursuing his enquiries.

  Scrap was not having much success. He hung about the alleys near St Giles’s, lounging at corners, tossing an apple in the air – bait for any passing lad; he had several more in his pockets for the same purpose. He heard the sound of a police rattle somewhere across the alleys and the sound of rushing feet, and shouts. After a thief, he thought, hoping it was not someone he knew.

  Running feet towards him. Kip Moon leaning breathless against the wall, a little girl following.

  ‘Wotcher, Scrap. ’Ow’s tricks? Not seen yer for ages. Where yer bin?’

  ‘Out an’ about, Kip – takin’ messages – earnin’ a bob or two. Apple?’

  ‘Don’t mind if I do.’

  ‘Tilly, yer want one?’ Scrap saw her hungry eyes, and offered the apple.

  ‘Ta, Scrap.’

  Scrap, who in his way was as perceptive a reader of human nature as the great novelist, knew how to wait. The three lounged against the wall, munching on the apples. Give ’em time, thought Scrap, and I’ll find out if they know anythin’ about Robin Hart. He watched as they ate.

  Tilly Moon’s bonnet had slipped off, and Scrap watched her unusual violet eyes. Tilly fascinated Scrap. She was an albino child, her white, almost silver hair like a halo under the blue gas light. She always wore her bonnet but running had dislodged it. Mrs Moon worried about her strange white child and wrapped her up against the curious, sometimes hostile stares of others, and against the appraising stares of men who sometimes caught a glimpse of silver hair. But Mrs Moon could not keep her in. She hoped Kip would look after her. Mostly he did. Mr Moon was crippled, his legs crushed by barrels falling from a wagon. Still, there would be no more children, now, thank God – she would have to bear no more the deaths of children. Little Lucy Moon had died at three years old and there had been a stillborn baby, a boy whom in her heart she had named Joey after her father. But she had enough to do looking after these two and the bitter, crippled man whose curses cut through the air like cruel knives, and whose hatred of the slight, white child broke her heart.

  Bad luck she brought, Mr Moon said, like ’avin’ a friggin’ ghost in the ’ouse. Look at me, he would snarl like a tethered dog, useless, cos that white freak ’as put a curse on me. The voice like a saw would go on and on until Mrs Moon pacified him with gin, and then he would weep because he was ashamed, and because of the agony of his pain. Then Mrs Moon would stand in the dungeon of a back yard, clenching and unclenching her hands, wishing that he were dead. And Kip and Tilly would roam the streets until they judged it safe to go home. Home, Mrs Moon would say to herself, a prison more like, and then she would go in to put a blanket over the sick man because he could not be got to bed.

  Tilly Moon had brains. Scrap could tell. They were there, bulging out behind the bony forehead. And he was right. Tilly was smart, but when she looked in the green, tarnished mirror she saw a ghost and it worried her. She did not know that she was an occulocutaneous albino, and that the blurring of the image in the mirror was the result of her myopia, caused by albinism. She saw the world as shadows, except Kip who kept close to her and whom she could see was her best friend. Tilly did not know that, in her way, she was beautiful, and that Scrap wondered if she were a fairy, if there were magic in those nearly purple eyes. Nor did she know that such ghostly strangeness is dangerous.

  The apples were finished. Tilly put her bonnet back, remembering that her mother told her to keep her hair covered.

  ‘Wot woz yer runnin’ from?’ asked Scrap.

  ‘Perlice found a dead man in one o’ the alleys. Murdered. ’Eard a man say ’e’d bin strangled. The giant, it woz – someone seen a giant. Lots o’ people seen ’im.’

  ‘I seen ’im,’ said Tilly.

  ‘Niver told me,’ said Kip. ‘When? Where?’

  ‘Cat’s ’Ole.’

  ‘Wot woz yer doin’ there? Tilly, no one goes in Cat’s ’Ole – yer know that.’

  ‘Rosie Jinks dared me. Said she’d give me a farthin’ if I’d run down Cat’s ’Ole to the corner – if I stepped round the corner, she’d give me two. An’ I did – we spent the farthin’s – yer remember – on them toffees.’

  ‘Yer niver said.’

  ‘Yer niver asked. Anyway, when we got ’ome, Pa woz shoutin’ so I forgot to tell yer.’ The violet eyes darkened to deeper purple at some memory.

  ‘Wot about the giant?’ asked Scrap. Was it, he wondered, the man he had seen in the alley behind Ned Boney’s? And what then was the thing that had bumped so horribly on the stones?

  ‘Stepped round the corner, an’ ’e woz there. ’Uge, he was, about ten feet high – an ogre.’ Tilly produced the last word triumphantly. Before the catastrophe struck, Tilly and Kip had possessed books. Tilly could still read, but the story of Jack the Giant Killer had long gone. She remembered the picture on the front, though, of the giant with his great club over his shoulder, his long hair and bushy beard. Oh, yes, she had seen that very giant in the alley.

  ‘Yer not romancin’, are yer, Tilly?’ Kip was cautious.

  ‘Saw ’im – big as an ’ouse – filled the whole passage, ’e did. I ran fer me life – but I got that ha’penny didn’t I? Bet that’s where ’e lives – that’s ’is lair.’ Another word came back to her. The long-remembered story coming to life. ‘We could go an’ find ’im an’ tell the perlice – get a reward. An’, an’, with the money, we’d get medicine for Pa, an’ e’d be better an’ ’e wouldn’t …’

  Kip’s heart twisted. He knew what Pa said. He had seen it often enough, the black mouth spitting its vile words, and he had seen the pale child with her hands over her ears, the silver tears mingling with the silver hair, and had known that if Pa could have walked he would have killed her. He had seen him struggling to rise and the wasted arm half raised as if to strike. Mebbe, just mebbe, he thought.

  Scrap wondered, too. He did not know about the thin blade that had entered Robin’s heart. He did not know about the toff. Perhaps the thing dragging on the stones was Robin Hart. And what about the boy called Jemmy? Had the giant got him? They could go and see. Then they could tell the superintendent, and he would go and get the giant. And there might be a reward for Tilly.

  ‘We’ll go then, Tilly, but we gotter be careful. I seen ’im, too. The other night. Seen ’im draggin’ somethin’ along – a body, mebbe – a victim.’

  ‘Aw right,’ said Kip. Kip was a link boy. They could find another boy with a torch so that Kip could light his. They did not want to go down Cat’s Hole in the pitch dark. They only needed a glimpse of the giant and then they would run for it.

  Cat’s Hole was the narrowest, dankest, slimiest alley. It slid like some night worm just by Rats’ Castle, the alley into which Tommy Titfer had gone with Dickens’s purse. He had not come out again. Kip’s torch created shadows on the walls; there were giants with them, monstrous shapes walking beside them, bending
with them, pointing with them, their grotesque heads turning when theirs turned. When Kip dipped the torch so that they could see where they were walking, the shadows seemed to crowd in on them as if pressing them down. Then they reared up, elongated in the sudden flare of the torch in a draught coming up from some underground cellar. Sometimes the light showed water running down the greasy walls. The air was damp and thick with the smell of rot and filth and human excrement. It was so narrow that they had to walk single file with Tilly in the middle, and Kip in front with the torch. They dared not speak and it was so quiet that they could hear themselves breathing. Occasionally, they could see red eyes peering at them. Rats. Rats which scuttled away at their approach. Nothing human here. Once in the flickering light, Scrap saw something that might have been blood – something dark red, encrusted. He saw it again a bit further on, and he thought about the thing trailing behind the giant, and a head, perhaps banging on the cobbles so that it bled into a trail just like this.

  Cat’s Hole widened out a little as they neared the corner where Tilly said she had turned to see the giant. When Scrap looked back at the narrowness of the tunnel-like passage through which they had come he could not help hoping that the giant would not be there. There was little room to escape. He began to think that he had been a fool. The superintendent had told him to be careful, and here he was, perhaps walking into a trap, and bringing two others with him. Gawd, he thought, wot an idiot, carried away by the idea of reward – oughter know better. An’ Tilly – bringin’ a girl into this.

  They stopped. The light seemed to go dim and the shadows moved in, closer, seeming to surround them. Tilly saw only shapes moving. She stepped forward, suddenly terrified, her bonnet slipping off her head. The lamp flared, illuminating her whiteness. Then something horrible came at them, something huge and shapeless, something which stank and roared, and grew, monstrous in the shifting shadow and flame, and reached out for her.