by Roz Southey
I had a little time before my first lesson; I turned up the street towards the clockmakers. Carts had traced pale lines down the street but the snow was filling them in again; I slipped crossing to Hugh’s rooms but managed not to fall. In the sheltered alley beside the clockmaker’s, I stamped my feet clear of the snow and went up the stairs.
The door to the dancing school was shut so I continued up, past the rooms occupied by a widow and her three children, to Hugh’s attic room above. The door was ajar; I pushed at it – and stopped in amazement. Bedding was all over the floor, Hugh’s clothes were scattered everywhere, his one chair lay overturned. Pages torn from books of dance tunes were crumpled and trampled underfoot.
In the middle of the mess, Hugh stood, hands on hips, glaring.
‘What the devil’s happened?’ I said.
‘He’s taken the buttons off my coats!’ Hugh said outraged.
My gaze went instinctively to a pile of clothes on the floor. I could see at least two coats and a waistcoat, and not a single button on any of them. And I’d have noticed the buttons; Hugh’s taste runs to the large and bright.
‘Is anything else missing?’
Hugh set the chair upright, sat down on it and stared bleakly at the clothing. ‘A little money, the ring I found— Oh God, Charles, my coats!’
He was clearly in mourning. Hugh adores his clothes; they’re the only thing he spends his money on.
‘I wonder why he didn’t take the coats themselves.’
‘Couldn’t carry them probably,’ Hugh said gloomily. There was indeed a large pile, but even one or two would have brought in a fair amount of money at one of the secondhand shops on the Key. ‘Do you have any idea how much those buttons cost?’
‘And your fiddle? Did he take that?’
‘Had it with me.’ Hugh sighed. ‘I got back very late last night to find the room like this. I couldn’t face dealing with it so I slept on a couple of chairs downstairs in the dancing school. Charles, what am I to do? I’ve a lesson to give in less than an hour and I’ll have to wear the same clothes I was in yesterday!’
‘You’ve time to get those coats to the tailor. He can have them mended by this evening.’
‘The villain cut the cloth on some of them,’ Hugh said, growing ever more morose. ‘You’d have thought he’d have taken a bit of care!’
I went back to the door. Raw wood showed where it had been forced.
‘It must have been done late,’ Hugh said, glumly. ‘I was here at eight, getting some music, and it was all right then.’
‘Tell the Watch,’ I recommended.
He crowed with derision. ‘What can those ancient wrecks do?’
‘They could keep a lookout for the buttons. The thief will sell them as quickly as possible.’
But he was deep in despair. ‘Not worth it.’
There was no arguing with him in this mood; I said, ‘Do you want me to help tidy up?’
‘No, I’ll do it.’ But he didn’t move.
I left; there was plainly no point in showing him the note from Alice Gregson as I’d planned. Hugh would come around soon; he was rarely low-spirited for long. But woe betide the thief if we ever found him!
Maybe someone had seen something suspicious. Hugh’s house is unspirited, so there was no help there, but the widow downstairs might have information. I knocked on her door with some trepidation, knowing she’d not be pleased. She’s never pleased to see me.
She made me wait before opening the door, and had an eyebrow raised and ready. Behind her, a boy of ten or so scowled.
‘Mr Patterson,’ she said coldly. ‘I trust you enjoyed your carousing last night.’
How very interesting. ‘In Mr Demsey’s rooms?’ I smiled sweetly, which seemed to infuriate her. ‘I wasn’t there. Did you see who was?’
‘I do not spy on my neighbours, Mr Patterson,’ she said. ‘And if I should see someone disreputable leaving my landlord’s rooms, then that is his business, not mine. Even if the man is plainly drunk.’
‘He fell in the snow,’ the boy said censoriously. ‘Serves him right.’
‘You would do well, Mr Patterson,’ his mother said, ‘to tell Mr Demsey to be more discerning in the company he keeps.’
I was tempted to tell him to raise her rent.
She shut the door on me before I could ask if she could describe the man.
It was a tedious morning. My mind was still running on the deaths and wondering if I’d get a message at any moment from McLintoch to say the spirits had disembodied, and I found it difficult to concentrate on correcting wrong notes and worse phrasing. At least the snow eased; by early afternoon, when I had time for something to eat, there were merely a few desultory flakes in the air.
I was in the upper reaches of Newgate Street by then, and it was a long walk down to the Sandhill and Nellie’s coffee house, but I felt the need for air and exercise.
I strode out, concentrating on my footing to avoid disaster. From Newgate, I cut into the Bigg Market and thence into the Groat Market. And stopped in amazement. A group of workmen with spades and picks were just going down into the pit where the mercer’s shop had been, ploughing unhappily through the deep snow. Presiding over them, directing them where to go and what to do, was Claudius Heron. He saw me and waited until I came up with him. He was immaculately dressed as ever; even in warm winter clothing he never looks less than gentlemanly. ‘It is unfortunate there has been more snow,’ he said, without greeting. ‘It has covered up the place where we discovered the coins and pottery yesterday. However, I am hopeful of finding the place again.’
The workmen were hauling themselves over the fallen timbers with the air of men who know that the sooner they get the job started, the sooner they’ll get it finished, and be able to go home.
‘The ground must be rock solid,’ I said. ‘We had a week of hard frosts before the snow.’
Heron nodded. ‘If necessary, we have the wherewithal to build a small fire. I have been meaning to talk to you. Do you think Demsey will be inclined to sell that ring if I increase my offer?’
I was taken aback. If Heron was willing to offer more than twenty guineas, the ring must be more valuable than I’d suspected. ‘I’m afraid the situation doesn’t arise. Hugh was burgled last night and the ring was amongst the items stolen.’
Heron looked annoyed. ‘It should not have been left at risk. He should have taken more care of it! Nobody seems to understand how valuable these antiquities are. When I spoke to Jenison about digging on his property, he obviously had not the slightest idea of the value of the find – he told me to do as I liked without even wishing to see the coins!’
I left him to do as he liked, which was ordering the workmen around in the cold – to do him justice, he would certainly be paying them well – and repaired to Nellie’s coffee house for a quick warming pie before setting off for my afternoon lessons. I didn’t think it would do a great deal of good but I asked one of the spirits to take a message to McLintoch telling him about Hugh’s burglary and asking him to keep an eye out for the stolen goods.
In mid-afternoon, I found Mrs Blackett entertaining what seemed like half the ladies of Newcastle. Six ladies in total, including Esther, and a spirit hovering on the handle of the tea-kettle; this was, I gathered, the spirit of Mrs Blackett’s much-loved elder sister. Every one of them – even the spirit for all I knew – regarded Esther and myself with a dew-eyed romantic gaze. When we married, I was afraid the difference in wealth and status between myself and Esther would cause the ladies to throw up their hands in horror and ostracize us from polite society. Instead, they threw up their hands in delight and welcomed us as prime gossip material. Esther cast me an apologetic smile as I sat down beside her. She was nibbling on some sweetmeat Mrs Blackett had provided for her guests – this sudden taste for sugary things was persisting, it seemed.
There was one lady who did not greet me with enthusiasm, however: Mrs Fletcher. She sat sternly upright at Mrs Blackett’s side, a
n odd contrast: Mrs Fletcher neat and drab and thin, Mrs Blackett comfortably plump and fashionable, and with suspiciously dark curls. Mrs Blackett patted her hand.
‘You know Mrs Fletcher, do you not, Mr Patterson? I met her in the bookshop and said at once she must drop in on us any time she liked. Such a dreadful thing.’
‘Mrs Blackett has been most gracious,’ Mrs Fletcher said.
Mrs Blackett poured a dish of tea and leant across to bestow it on me. ‘I knew Sophia Gregson well.’
‘The mother,’ Esther murmured in my ear.
‘A very agreeable woman.’
There was a chorus of tales relating Mrs Gregson’s generous behaviour. She was apparently close to being a saint.
‘I didn’t know them at all,’ I said. ‘Of course Gregson himself had a very good reputation.’
Mrs Fletcher gave me a contemptuous look.
‘I met the youngest girl, Sarah,’ Esther murmured, ‘but not Alice.’
‘I was in the shop one day last week when she was very rude to her father.’ The lady who spoke was Mrs Cunningham, a thin spare woman with a down-turned mouth. ‘Demanded money to buy some bag or other. Said she’d seen it in the mantua makers and was determined to have it. She said if she was going to have to stay in such an out-of-the-way place, she’d at least have the necessities of life to comfort her.’
‘Out-of-the-way place!’ Mrs Blackett said horrified. ‘Newcastle?’ She looked extremely offended. ‘This is not Scotland! We have every new thing here as soon as one could wish it.’
‘I suppose,’ Esther said, ‘she must have been annoyed when her father refused her.’
‘No such thing,’ Mrs Cunningham said, the lines about her mouth deepening. ‘He gave her a sovereign straight away and sent her off again. Just to be rid of her, I daresay.’
‘But if he gave her the money she wanted,’ Esther said, ‘I can’t understand why she killed him.’
‘Children are ungrateful,’ Mrs Cunningham said with calm hard certainty. ‘There’s nothing more certain in this world.’
‘My sister was, certainly,’ Mrs Fletcher agreed. ‘But that doesn’t make her a murderer.’
There was a flutter of excitement amongst the ladies. ‘In any case—’ Mrs Fletcher spoke more loudly to be heard over the hubbub. ‘I thought we were agreed, Mr Patterson, that it was an accomplice who carried out the killings.’
There was a great deal of commotion; Mrs Fletcher overrode the ladies’ excited exclamations. ‘You may not be aware of it, but Mr Patterson was attacked yesterday in the street and the key to my father’s house taken. Then the house was ransacked. The villain was plainly looking for anything that might incriminate him.’
The spirit on the tea-kettle shrieked in an attempt to be heard as the ladies asked a dozen questions all at once. Was I all right? Had I been injured? (Oddly enough, it was the hard and unpleasant Mrs Cunningham who asked after my health.) Was anything taken from the house? Had the villain left any clue as to his identity?
‘But of course,’ Mrs Blackett said, ‘I knew the daughter couldn’t have done it. No daughter could.’ She trailed off into silence, and it was obvious she was thinking of her own two daughters.
‘No,’ Esther said, in an oddly curt tone. ‘I don’t believe any daughter could.’
‘Surely,’ Mrs Cunningham said, ‘it should be a simple matter to see whether anything was taken from the house? If such things as candlesticks and other valuables have disappeared, then the man was probably a common thief, seizing his opportunity to raid a house he knew would be empty. If they’re still there, however, then it would suggest this man was indeed the murderer, revisiting the scene of his dreadful crime.’
‘Mrs Fletcher would know if anything was stolen!’ Mrs Blackett cried.
The ladies took up the idea with enthusiasm. If they’d had their way, they’d have packed Mrs Fletcher and me off to the Gregson’s shop immediately and made a picnic out of it. I remembered I’d meant to contact Armstrong and had not yet done so and said, mendaciously, to put them off, that I thought it was snowing heavily. Some of the ladies immediately got up, frightened they wouldn’t be able to get home again. But a servant who came in response to calls for carriages said it wasn’t snowing and in fact the sun had come out and it was very pleasant. The ladies subsided again.
‘If the murderer was indeed an unknown man,’ I said, ‘that doesn’t completely exonerate Alice. She may have plotted with him to rob her own family, she may have let him into the house. If she was entirely innocent, surely she’d have come forward by now.’
‘I believe my sister is innocent of any wrongdoing,’ Mrs Fletcher said directly. ‘I think she’s guilty of no more than being fleet-footed enough to escape. Let us consider another possibility.’
The ladies were breathlessly attentive. Esther cast me an uneasy glance.
‘The apprentice and the key,’ Mrs Fletcher said. ‘In fact, the apprentice is the key. We all know what such youths are like.’ A chorus of agreement; I was glad Fowler wasn’t here to hear the contempt in their voices. ‘This unknown man was intent on robbing the shop and he suborned the apprentice, persuading the boy to let him into the house. I’m told the key was in the lock inside the house, which is where it would be if the boy let him in. The villain found money but the apprentice was afraid he’d take it all and leave none for him. They argued, and the villain stabbed the boy. Meanwhile, the noise of their argument woke everyone else . . .’
‘And he killed them all!’ Mrs Blackett cried, in a kind of triumph.
‘They tried to prevent his escape!’ the sister’s spirit squeaked. The ladies broke out in eager embroidery of the facts; in the hubbub, my insistence that the Gregsons were all asleep when they were killed, went unheard.
I glanced at Esther; she was looking very tired. I stood up. ‘I believe we must go.’
The ladies protested, but I insisted and Esther rose with a grateful sigh that fortunately went as unheard as my previous protests. But, as we were on the verge of leaving the room, Mrs Fletcher said, ‘I have some time spare tonight, Mr Patterson. I would be happy to look over the house with you.’
With the ladies all eagerly supporting the idea, I thought it politic to acquiesce. ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘Tonight.’ And we agreed a time.
In the hall, the servant gave us our outdoor clothes and we paused on the doorstep. The sun had indeed come out, sparkling off the drifts of snow.
‘I’ll call for a chair to carry you home,’ I said, looking at Esther’s pale face.
She shook her head. ‘I need some air, Charles. That room was stuffy.’
I wished I thought that was all it was. ‘Let me call the apothecary. Or Gale.’
‘I do not need a surgeon!’ she snapped. ‘Or an apothecary!’ She stopped, bit her lip, then laid a hand on my arm. ‘Forgive me, Charles. I am merely feeling low. I loathe this dreadful weather.’
She’d seemed to delight in it on Saturday night. ‘You’re too tired to walk.’
She drew her cloak up over her head. ‘I will be all right, Charles, I promise you. I will walk up Westgate so that if I feel tired I can call in on Mr Demsey for a rest.’
I had to let her go – it was plain she’d settle for nothing less. But I was worried as I watched her walk away. She’d seemed all right when I arrived in the drawing room. Something had distressed her, something that had been said – but I couldn’t for the life of me think what.
Sixteen
The public buildings, I must say, are generally very attractive, but they have their slums, just as we do.
[Letter from Louis de Glabre to his friend Philippe
Froidevaux, 20 January 1737]
I found a spirit to take a request to Armstrong and was about to walk off to my next lesson when it called me back hurriedly. The spirit had plainly been a young man in life, rough but good-natured. ‘Message for you from Mr McLintoch. Could he have the honour of your company on the bridge, he says.’ The spirit positi
vely twinkled. ‘Polite man, Mr McLintoch. Always mindful of his manners!’ And with a flourish, it shot off.
I altered direction and was with McLintoch on the bridge in five minutes. He was wearing an ancient greatcoat that looked held together with goodwill, and saluted me as if I was a naval commander. ‘Mr Patterson, sir!’
‘The spirits have disembodied?’
‘No, sir.’ He must have seen my disappointment; he made an obvious attempt to try and cheer me up. ‘We’ve found where the girl hid, when she fled from the house.’ He gestured along the Key. ‘Out to the west. Did you want to look, sir?’
Even this was a disappointment, I thought wryly: they’d found the place but not the girl herself.
I fell into step beside him as he led the way along the riverside, following the route I’d taken the night of the murders in pursuit of the girl. We passed the snowy ruins of the town wall and came to the alley where the woman’s spirit had brought me to a halt with her cries of rape. There was no spirit in evidence this time. McLintoch led me into the alley, bore left then right. We walked into a court, narrow and evil-smelling, with undisturbed snow on the cobbles. Three houses faced on to the court and all looked derelict – windows broken or boarded-up, doors hanging askew on twisted hinges.
‘No one’s lived here since we cleared out a nest of thieves last year,’ McLintoch said. ‘We’ve a spirit who keeps an eye on it for us.’ He raised his voice. ‘I wants a word with you, young lady!’
There was a pause, then a spirit slid down to a window pane at eye level.
‘Now, young lady,’ McLintoch said, winking at me. ‘Tell the gentleman here what happened last Saturday night.’
‘Don’t know why I should,’ the spirit said sullenly. I stared at the dull gleam; it was the spirit I’d spoken to on the night of the murders.
‘We’re trying to find who killed Mr Gregson and his family,’ McLintoch said. ‘That’s a good thing, don’t you think?’