by J C Briggs
13
MRS MAPES
Cricklewood was a small village, a mile or so in length, situated in a valley between five hills. The road there was often deep in mud, and highway robberies used to be frequent, but in the afternoon when Dickens and Jones arrived, it was quiet: a few cottages, a windmill, a village green where the Crown inn stood, and a blacksmith’s. The sun had come out and, although it was still cold, the village lay peaceful in the pale sunlight. It could have been fifty miles from London not five. They had come by hired fly and had asked the driver to wait for them at the Crown.
The forge was not hard to find; they could hear the beating of the hammer on metal. In the yard, a large, shaggy horse stood patiently, waiting for his new shoes. He looked peaceable enough, though Dickens gave him a fairly wide berth – he had been bitten once by a deceptively tranquil beast which had attacked him for no good reason. It had torn off his sleeve and he had felt the terror of the moment for days afterwards – in fact, he had not been able to write.
They looked in through the door to see the smith working on a horseshoe at the anvil. There was a stone chimney with its raised hearth on which coke gleamed deep red. A boy stood by with his bellows which wheezed and clanked as he worked them and the fire gave out a glittering shower of sparks. The smith, in his leather apron, was a young, well-built man whose face shone in the firelight. He frowned in concentration, not looking up. They watched and waited for him to finish the shoe.
They watched him beating the shoe which burnt white as the iron shot out another fountain of sparks under the blows. The smith hammered it on the anvil and turned it on the beak so that they could see it taking shape. When the white turned to a yellow glow, he put the shoe back in the fire with the tongs. They heard the angry hiss of the metal. He hammered again, the gold changing to a dull red. They watched him hammer in the holes where the nails would go and saw how the red changed to blue grey, and then it was finished. The smith looked up.
‘We are looking for Mrs Mapes. I wish to ask her about her former employer, Mrs Outfin.’
The smith came forward, the hot shoe steaming on the tongs. They stood back as he passed them; the boy followed and held the horse by its bridle as it moved restively, hearing the smith come out.
‘And you are?’ the smith asked as he lifted the great feathered hoof and stood astride the horse’s leg, ready to assess if the shoe was a fit.
‘I am Superintendent Jones from Bow Street. I wish to know if Mrs Mapes can identify a shawl which we have in connection with a crime. This is my colleague, Mr Dickens.’
The shoe fitted and the smith picked up his hammer and nails. They waited. The boy murmured reassuring words to the horse. Dickens noted that its eye rolled, and then it stood still.
‘You’ll find her in the house. Just by the barn over there.’
They left him and walked to the neat cottage with its white door, the upper half of which was open. A young woman came at their knock, the smith’s wife, they thought. She carried a rosy-faced child on her hip who looked at them with saucer eyes. So did the young woman. She looked puzzled, and slightly anxious.
‘We are looking for Mrs Mapes. I am Superintendent Jones from Bow Street. I wish to ask her about her former employer, Mrs Outfin.’
The young woman’s expression changed; she was curious now. ‘Ma’s inside – come in.’
They stepped into a neat room, warm from the cooking range on which a pot of something which smelt delicious bubbled. The room was clean and there was the scent of freshly washed laundry in the air. Mrs Mapes, a strong, cheerful-looking woman with bright blue eyes like her daughter’s, was folding linen at a well-scrubbed pine table. Near the range, there was a cradle in which a baby lay asleep.
‘I heard what you said. You want to know something about Mrs Outfin – I take it you know that she is dead?’
‘We went to her son’s to ask about this shawl. Do you recognise it? Can you tell us what happened to it after Mrs Outfin’s death?’ Sam produced the shawl, loosening the silken folds so that she could see it clearly.
Mrs Mapes came forward. She took a pair of spectacles from her apron pocket to look at it closely and she fingered the worn places.
‘Yes, I recognise it. It belonged to Mrs Outfin – the pattern is very distinctive. After her death, I gave some things to the maids – the younger Mrs Outfin gave me permission to dispose of the clothes and other things which were not wanted. It was generous of her – she knew we would all lose our places – and she promised characters to the servants who needed them. Well, there were hats and gloves, and dresses, shoes, too, and I made sure all the maids got something. The rest I sold.’
‘Do you remember to whom you gave this shawl?’
‘I do. Mattie Webb – she had admired it, and she was thrilled with it. Loved the birds and flowers, she said. Never had anything like it. How did you get it, Superintendent? Has something happened to Mattie? She wouldn’t have sold it, I’m sure.’ She sounded concerned suddenly. It was clear that Mattie Webb had treasured her gift.
‘It was found – it may be a clue in a crime we are investigating. Where is Mattie Webb now?’
‘She found a new position – at a house in Charles Street, off St James’s Square. Family named Du Cane. Mrs Outfin – the younger, that is – got her the position. The Du Canes are friends of Mr and Mrs Outfin. Mattie is a very capable girl, and a very good maid. I thought she would do well there. She would have no need to sell the shawl. Unless she lost it – found, you say?’
‘Yes – she may have lost it, as you say. We shall have to ask her.’
‘Oh, I hope it won’t bring her any trouble – employers don’t like the police calling. Oh, dear, she’s such a good girl. She wouldn’t have anything to do with anything wrong, I’m sure.’ Mrs Mapes’s pleasant, open face was crumpled now in her anxiety.
‘Don’t worry, Mrs Mapes. I’m sure that you’re right. We will be very discreet, but I do need to know how the shawl came to be where it was found.’ Sam tried to be reassuring. He did not want to say that the shawl had been found at the scene of a murder.
‘Do you remember anything about the woman who made the shawl?’ Dickens asked by way of diversion.
Mrs Outfin looked at him curiously – this younger man who had not spoken before did seem familiar. She wondered who he was.
‘Mamselle Victorine?’
‘Yes,’ said Sam. ‘Can you tell us about her?’
Mrs Outfin looked at her daughter. ‘We knew her only because she came to the house. Mary, my daughter, worked as a maid sometimes at Mrs Outfin’s – when we needed an extra hand. The milliner – she was a strange young woman. Very quiet, reserved, I suppose.’
‘Yes,’ said Mary. ‘She was odd. Once I was in the drawing room when she was waiting for Mrs Outfin. I tried to talk to her, but she wasn’t having it. Probably thought she was too good to speak to a servant. Cold, I thought, you know, never smiled.’ She thought a moment. ‘Lonely, though, now I think of it. Perhaps she didn’t know how to talk to people.’
Mrs Mapes went on, ‘Mrs Outfin didn’t care for her much. She changed to another milliner, said Mamselle Victorine was too sullen. Mrs Outfin liked her servants good-humoured, and so we were, whether we felt like it or not, but Mamselle didn’t see any need to be friendly – suppose she thought her work was enough and she wasn’t a servant, after all. I felt a bit sorry for her when I had to tell her that she was no longer required. It had to be me, of course. Mrs Outfin would not condescend to dismiss her.’
Sam thought. Could they risk a few questions about the rest of the family? He had noted the address of the Du Canes and that they were friends of the Outfins. Not that far from Hungerford Stairs. He thought of Theo Outfin.
Dickens had the same idea. He smiled at Mrs Mapes and Mary – the smile that would persuade them to answer, that would prevent them from wondering at the questions.
‘A difficult woman, Mrs Outfin?’ His tone was light, inviting her conf
idence.
‘Sometimes.’ She smiled back at Dickens.
‘A regular tartar.’ Mary was charmed into the truth. ‘Bad tempered old cat. Wanted gratitude all the time. She wanted slaves not servants.’ Her blue eyes were indignant.
‘Mary, don’t exaggerate. Yes, she was a bit cantankerous, but she could be generous, especially to her grandchildren.’
Gold. Here it was. Thank you, Charles, Sam said to himself.
‘Yes, we met them. Sophia Outfin is to be married – a lovely girl. I know her fiancé, Mr Wilde.’
‘Yes, we heard. Miss Sophy could always put Mrs Outfin into a good mood – she had that way with her, you know, soft and patient. Now, Mr Theo, he could be moody – didn’t get on with his father – mind, he was only a boy then. Probably grown up a bit since. But his grandmother spoilt him a bit. Left him a lot of money in her will. Gets it when he’s twenty-one. He’ll be rich then, I daresay.’
Dickens took another risk in that confiding gossipy atmosphere. ‘We met him. We thought he might not get on with his father. I wonder why.’
‘A bit girlish, I think. They look so alike – Sophy and Theo – when they were young, Miss Sophy used to play at being a boy, and, you know, she looked exactly like him. She was a bit of a tomboy, but Mr Theo, he was quiet, didn’t like boyish things. Always reading. His father used to get impatient with him then sent him to school, Eton it was. Thought it would make a man of him, I suppose.’
‘Perhaps it did. Families are not always easy,’ said Dickens. He could not help feeling sympathy for Theo Outfin. Dickens had been a solitary boy. A terrible boy to read, his nurse, Mary Weller had said, and he remembered being too sickly to play cricket with the other boys, the spasms in his side so painful that he could only watch the others running about. Perhaps Theo Outfin had been sickly. But what was he now? And was there a connection to the dead boys? Charles Street where the Du Canes lived was not far from Hungerford Stairs.
Sam thought it was time to go. ‘We must be on our way, Mrs Mapes. Thank you for giving us Mattie’s address – I assure you we shall be discreet.’
They left the warm cottage. They could hear the hammer on the anvil. The smith was still at work though the large horse had gone. They walked across to the Crown where their driver waited, passing a cottage gate where a flock of white geese hissed at them. There was a bench outside the inn and they sat where there was a patch of sunshine which gave a little warmth. Sam looked across at the smithy where a farmer was bringing a horse to be shod.
‘My father was a blacksmith,’ he said, musingly. ‘I might have been one myself – a good life, it was – regular. My father was a contemplative sort of man – not given to many words – like our smith over there.’
‘Could you shoe a horse? Among your many other gifts?’ asked Dickens. He had not known of this before. He was intrigued by this new dimension to his friend. ‘I thought you came from policing stock.’
‘I could once – not very well, but I was learning the trade. My father died when I was ten and his brother took over the forge. He had a son so there was no room for me. In any case, my mother wanted to go back to London – couldn’t stick the country without my father. She took her share of the business and we went to live with her sister whose husband was a policeman. However, my mother did not want that for me – at fifteen, I was sent to be a clerk in a lawyer’s office at Lincoln’s Inn.’
‘Just as I was myself – though at Gray’s Inn.’
‘Dull, wasn’t it?’ Sam laughed. ‘When I thought of the future, I felt I was looking down a tunnel to the cramped years ahead, the drudgery, the pointlessness of it all – my large self chafed at it and when my mother died, I was free to go for a policeman – river police at Wapping, then in 1829 I joined the Peelers, proud in my blue coat and top hat – and here I am.’
‘Regret it?’
‘No, though sometimes the flood of human misery we encounter depresses me – still, we sometimes do some good – as you do yourself.’
They sat quiet for a while listening to the strike of the hammer on the anvil; it was soothing somehow, timeless, and Sam thought of those long-ago days at the forge. Life had been simple then, but if he had stayed there would have been no Elizabeth, and, he thought, he would not have met Charles Dickens, and they would not be sitting here in peaceful companionship.
‘Well,’ he said, at last, grinning at Dickens, ‘we certainly got more than we bargained for – thanks to your charm with the ladies. I was thinking that I hardly dared ask about Mrs Outfin’s family when you came to the rescue. What are your fees for inveigling innocent witnesses to talk?’
‘Modest, Sam, very modest – a brandy would be welcome. This sun is a deceiver – my feet are freezing.’
They went inside the old inn with its low beams and oak settles, and seated themselves by a blazing fire waiting for the landlord to bring them their brandy. The driver sat at the bar and was glad to be treated to another drink.
‘I will send Feak to discover Mattie Webb – he can do a bit of detecting – or, perhaps I should send the Sybil of Star Street. I will tell him to be discreet – go round to the servants’ entrance. He can use the usual tale – thieves about, that sort of thing. I want to know what happened to that shawl. Of course, she may have lost it but –’
‘It is all very suggestive – the shawl at the Du Canes, the Du Canes are friends of the Outfins, Charles Street is not far from Hungerford Stairs – Theo Outfin could have visited the Du Canes. Jemmy and Robin were found in two different places. Theo Outfin might now be connected to Hungerford Stairs and St Giles’s is not too far from Montague Place.’
‘And, we know a bit more about Theo – solitary, girlish, a disappointment to his father. Was he interested in small boys? That is the question. I need the results of the post-mortem – if Robin and Jemmy were sexually abused then we must consider that Theo might be our man.’
‘And, if not, where does that leave us? What is the motive for the killings, then?’
‘Well, Rogers thought crime might be a factor – the man using the boys, and killing them to stop them talking.’
‘But the mask? That does not fit at all to the idea of a thief turned murderer. It means something, I am sure. The murderer has something to say to us.’
‘Such as?’ asked Sam.
‘“You cannot know me.” Is he telling us that he is too clever for us? That we cannot catch him?’
‘But, we must, and we will know him. We will peel off that mask, and we will see his face stripped of its cleverness, and he will see us and know that he is caught.’
They went out of the inn with the driver and made their way back to the roaring, clamorous city. Dickens would go home, and afterwards dine with Oliver Wilde. The superintendent could not help looking forward to rattling the bones of Fikey Chubb. It would relieve his feelings, he thought, to see Fikey Chubb sweating.
14
FIKEY CHUBB SWEATS
Fikey Chubb did sweat – far more than the superintendent remembered. His office was filled with the man’s rancid stench. Not fear, yet. Fikey blustered: ’e was a respectable shopkeeper and business man; ’e knew nothin’ about no friggin’ Tommy Titfer. Wot did they mean about ’im bein’ dangerous? ’Oo, said it, ’e’d like ter know? Known for ’is generosity was Fikey. Blimey, the things people said. It made yer lose yer faith, it did.
Sam was patient, listening to the indignant recital of Fikey’s virtues. ‘Tommy Titfer has not been seen. We just wanted to ask if you had seen him. It was said he owed you money. A man doesn’t generally lend money to a man he doesn’t know.’
‘Dint say I dint know the bleeder – thort you woz askin’ if I knows where ’e is. Entrapment, that’s wot it is – I’ll be makin’ a complaint. Gotta lawyer, I ’ave. Respectable citizen I am – yer –’
‘I’ll make a note of your concerns, Mr Chubb – the money, if you’ll oblige me.’
‘Well, if yer puts it like that, I don’t mind tellin’
yer.’ Fikey was gracious. Give the rozzer somethin’ an’ they’d git off ’is back. ‘Titfer owed me money. Bit of a sly one is Tommy, bleedin’ all over the carpet abaht ’is ma an’ ’is brother – dire straits, ’e said. Well, wot woz I ter do? I lent ’im a few quid – an’ I ain’t seen ’im since. Bleedin’ disgrace, it is – a man acts in good faith an’ then wot? Let down, that’s wot.’
‘But you are a frequenter of the Rats’ Castle?’
‘Fre – wot? Wot d’yer mean?’ Fikey was suspicious. Wot woz bein’ pinned on ’im?
‘You drink at Rats’ Castle – often.’
‘So what? Niver ’eard it woz a crime ter take a glass now an’ then.’ Fikey grinned at his own wit. They ’ad nothin’ on ’im, he thought. Jest fishin’.
‘No, indeed. Though I am surprised that a respectable businessman such as yourself should find it congenial.’ A draw, so far, thought Sam. Time to press him a bit. ‘Know anything about the dead man in the alley off the High Street?’
‘’Eard abaht it. Nothin’ ter do wiv me.’
‘Story is there’s a giant on the loose. Seen him? About Rats’ Castle?’
‘Nah. Madman, I ’eard.’