by KJ Charles
There was a general chuckle at that—our profession does not lend itself to delicacy of feeling—and such was Dr. Berry’s obituary among his peers.
An Eye for an Eye
London is foul in the summer. The great Mr. Bazalgette, whose system of sewers turned London from an open cesspool to a breathable metropolis, is in my view the patron saint of our city, yet even his remarkable ingenuity could not make the place tolerable in the sweltering August of 1897. It was hot, we had not had rain in too long, and the city stank: of horse manure, of drains, of sweaty unwashed humanity, foul clothes, tanneries, workshops, smoke, filth of every description, dry stone, dust, and two thousand years of human habitation in which it had not burned to the ground nearly often enough.
A year and a half, more or less, had passed since Dr. Berry’s demise and Mr. Parker’s fall. Parker had been succeeded by a remarkably bright young man named Ranjit Singh, a distant relative of the deposed Maharajah Duleep Singh who was such great friends with our Queen. Mr. Singh, later Sir Ranjit, quickly achieved the same unaccountable power as his predecessor, but used it with a great deal more charm. He was at this time deploying that charm in an effort to woo Simon back to the Government work that he steadfastly declined.
“Mr. Feximal is unforgiving,” Mr. Singh observed to me after a particularly brusque refusal. “I suppose Mr. Parker was not forgivable?”
“He was not.” Nor had the Fat Man’s blackmail been easy to swallow, but I did not mention that. I cherished a faint hope that he might not share the power he held over us. “It is one thing to work for Whitehall, quite another to be made a catspaw in political manoeuvring.”
Mr. Singh grimaced. “May I speak frankly, Mr. Caldwell?”
“By all means,” I said, wondering what manipulation would follow. Men with royal relatives and cut-glass Oxford accents do not speak frankly to unimportant scribblers.
“Mr. Parker had occult ambitions. He dreamed of commanding the power used by Dr. Berry and Mr. Feximal and the rest. I do not. I have no desire to swim in your dark waters, Mr. Caldwell, still less to poach there, and I should not dream of infringing upon any occultist’s independence. You might tell Mr. Feximal that, and ask him to reconsider.”
I did tell Simon. His response was curt in the extreme, and I was forced to communicate to Mr. Singh that we could not entertain further Whitehall approaches.
It was no matter; we had plenty of work. On this hot summer day of 1897, we had but recently concluded the dramatic case of corpse theft from the church at St James Garlickhythe (the church’s resident mummy had become animated, and hungry), and were treating ourselves to a richly deserved lazy morning. Simon, who always woke before I, had aroused me very thoroughly, and after a brief period of exhausted recovery, we were taking breakfast in the morning-room. It was near on ten of the clock and already warm.
As we finished our meal, sharing the last of the pot of tea, Cornelia came in.
I have not written a great deal of Simon’s scarred and tongueless servant; her story is not mine to give. (I will say, because some things should be told, that Miss Kay had avenged Cornelia’s tongue and eye on those who had taken them, and that her vengeance was comprehensive and far-reaching.) She ran our strange household, and paid no mind to either the occult or the unlawful goings-on, and I think, or I hope, she was as content as might be.
She clapped her hands in the way that she used on the rare occasions that she wanted our attention. Simon glanced up from the newspaper at once—I think he probably treated her with more courtesy than he did anyone else on earth, certainly more than he did me—and enquired, “What is it?”
She handed him a piece of paper. Some of the dumb use hand signals to communicate; she felt herself too old to learn, and was not talkative.
“Your friend wishes to consult us,” Simon read. He kept his voice neutral, which was a kindness, since I knew just how much he had been looking forward to a little peace. “Of course. Make an appointment—” Cornelia jabbed a finger at the floor. “She’s downstairs? Very well, show her in. And more tea, please.”
“I suppose we have to,” I observed reluctantly, once Cornelia had left us. “I do think you need a rest, dear fellow, you look tired.”
“Nonsense,” Simon said. “I am not at all tired and if we can deal with this business quickly, I shall take pleasure in proving to you just how much energy I have.”
“Well, if you’re up to it,” I said, with a hint of doubt, and received a glowering look over the newspaper that promised the most delightful retribution.
Sadly—or fortunately, since in truth I was not up to another bout myself quite yet—we heard footsteps on the stair, and a moment later, Cornelia came in with a pot of tea, and ushered in a woman.
“Mr. Feximal?” she asked, looking from me to Simon as we both stood. He indicated himself, and she bobbed a curtsey. “Thank you for seeing me, sir. I’m grateful.”
“Take a chair, Mrs—?”
“Robey.” She seated herself in the chair I held out, with some relief. She was a full-figured woman, aged perhaps sixty. A lady of colour, with dark eyes and skin, and hair as grey as Simon’s, under a bonnet that was old but obviously cared for with infinite pains, and adorned with a fresh Michaelmas daisy. Her dress was equally worn. One of the deserving poor, I concluded; a lady who made every penny work for its keep and would rather go hungry than present a dirty face to the world.
“What’s the problem?” Simon asked.
“Well, sir…” She glanced up at Cornelia, obviously hesitant, fingers twining in her skirt. Near her purse, I would have wagered.
“Pro bono,” Simon said, with just a touch of impatience.
“What Mr. Feximal means,” I put in, “is that if Cornelia has brought you to us then we will give you every assistance for her sake. You may speak freely. In every sense.”
She gave me a look of gratitude. “Thank you kindly. I won’t deny, that eases my mind. Well, sir, you asked my problem, and it is this: my grandson has a sweetheart. A good girl, but, well, a tosher’s daughter.”
I could imagine that this impeccably clean lady would object to a connexion with a family of toshers. They were a strange and secretive community, the men and women who skulked through the sewers and along the banks of the grey and greasy Thames searching for coins and valuables in the mire, and though I understood they set themselves apart with pride, they were an object of revulsion to most.
What I could not imagine was why this was a problem for Simon. He obviously also suspected that he was being asked to act as some kind of marriage bureau, and his expression was sufficiently incredulous that the lady went on hastily. “That’s not my problem for you, sir, of course. No. What it is, well, the girl has vanished.”
“Vanished?”
“Gone. There one evening, gone the next. Nor hide nor hair since Monday night.”
“It’s Wednesday morning,” Simon said flatly.
“That is to say, have you any reason for concern as yet?” I interpreted. “And any reason to suspect this is a case for Mr. Feximal’s particular skills?”
She shifted in her chair. “You see, Peggy—that’s her name, Peggy Flowers—she’s a piebald one. Of the toshers. A piebald girl.”
“What is a piebald girl?” Simon asked.
Now she looked very uncomfortable indeed. “That’s the problem, sir. I don’t know if I can say.”
Simon exhaled through his nose. I hurried to intervene. The lady might be circumlocutory but her whole posture indicated genuine distress. “By piebald, do you mean her appearance?” A quick nod, relieved, as though she felt she could agree without speech. “Her skin? She’s a mulatto? Or disfigured in some way?” A shake, no. I had no idea what she was getting at. “Her hair is particoloured?”
Behind the chair, Cornelia touched a finger to her one eye.
“Her eyes,” I said, and saw the relief on Mrs. Robey’s face. This might seem like a parlour guessing game, but it was clearly real to her
. “She has strange-coloured eyes? No? Then…different. Her eyes are different colours.”
“Blue like the sky, grey like the river. Left grey, right blue. That’s a piebald girl.”
The detail had caught Simon’s attention, I saw. “And what do you mean, gone?”
“Not come home. Nobody’s seen her. And the toshers aren’t telling us anything. Skip, my grandson, he’s been to old Mr. Sweetly, asking for help, but they’re doing naught. Peggy vanished, and none of the toshers looking for her and… I think they’re afraid.”
“Of someone?” I asked.
“Of something,” Simon said.
“Something is right, sir.” Her voice dropped to a mutter. “Something that comes in dark corners, something we oughtn’t see, much less touch. Something claiming its own. And I’ll swear Peggy’s a good girl, sir, a God-fearing girl, baptised like a Christian, but she’s piebald and she’s gone, and I’m frightened for her, that’s the truth. I’m frightened.”
If I were asked to name my least favourite type of case, excluding those that threaten life, limb and immortal soul, I should probably name those where the first task is to find out what the story is. A witness out of whom the account must be pried is a deeply tiresome thing. Yet it was clear that Mrs. Robey’s reticence was not due to notions of manners or modesty. There was something of which she could not speak. So we told her to take us to someone who could.
We accompanied her to Bermondsey, that scabrous district south of the river, opposite the great, cold presence of the Tower. The wharves were, as always, dank and sodden; the river was low. Bent figures combed the banks, ducking in and out of boats, clambering over pilings and into the unspeakable outlets of drains. God knows what it was like before the sewers. It stank now, and it did not stink less as we plunged into a maze of narrow back streets where teetering houses leaned together until they blotted out the sun, where half-clothed pinch-faced children squalled, and slatternly women sat on doorsteps and called coarse things to grimy men.
I have seen many things that bewilder the senses. Sometimes I think that the depth of poverty in the greatest and wealthiest city on earth is the most astounding of all.
We followed our guide into a house by Bermondsey Wall. It was small and dark, bare of everything but hooks on the walls for clothing, settles and chairs and a rough table. A room for many people to share. It was swept and tidy, so far as it might be, but there is no escaping the plain fact that it reeked. As we stepped inside, the smell of human excrement, and rot, and rats, and dead things, and every variety of foulness was such that I gagged, and thought for a moment I might disgrace myself and shame my hosts as my stomach rebelled. I glanced at Simon and realised he was breathing shallowly through his mouth.
“Well, it takes some gettin’ used ter,” our hostess said, observing our distress, no matter how we tried to hide it. “But this is a tosher’s ’ouse, an’ toshers will stink.”
She was perhaps forty years, though hardship ages a face, a generation younger than Mrs. Robey, who she had greeted without warmth, eyes flickering to us. Her hair was greying, her skin lined, and she had one grey eye and one blue.
She did not seem to appreciate two well-dressed gentlemen coming to her door.
“This is Mr. Feximal,” Mrs. Robey said. “He’s going to find Peggy. Sir, this is Molly Flowers.”
“Peggy’s mother?” I had my answer in her face, the widening eyes, the hope and fear briefly betrayed, then clamped down upon.
“How’ll he do that?” She spoke vituperatively, in reaction to her own feelings, I would hazard. “How’ll a fine gentleman know our ways? How—”
“I hope, because you will speak to us,” I said, and she turned on me.
“Speak? Oh, my eye! As if speaking wasn’t what got my Peggy took, and my ma killed!” Hands on hips, now, in the classic posture of the Cockney female readying herself for battle. Before I could respond the door banged open, and a young fellow hurried in. He was dressed like a shopkeeper’s man, sleeves rolled up to reveal admirably muscular forearms, and his brown skin and tight-curled hair suggested a relationship to Mrs. Robey that was confirmed by his cry.
“Grandma, did you get the gentleman?”
There was a moment’s babel as Mrs. Flowers wrathfully demanded what the young man knew about this impertinence, Mrs. Robey attempted to put her grandson abreast of the situation, and Simon enquired, with some impatience, whether his assistance was required or not. It all stopped abruptly, at a very heavy thump from upstairs.
“And that’s himself disturbed,” Mrs. Flowers snapped. “I blame you, Martha Robey.”
“Let the gentlemen talk to him, Ma.” Skip darted forward and took her hand. It would, I thought, be a strong woman who could resist the plea on that handsome face. “For Peggy. Please, now. I want my Peg back, and so do you. Come, what’s to be lost?”
“You got no idea,” Mrs. Flowers said, through set teeth. “None. Go up if you must but I’ll none of it.” She marched over to a chair, sat, and threw her apron over her head.
Mrs. Robey glanced at her, then gestured, urging her grandson to take us upstairs. As he indicated the way, my last sight of Mrs. Flowers was her apron-muffled shoulders shaking with silent sobs, while Mrs. Robey put a comforting arm around her.
I closed the door, leaving us in a little, dank, dark space at the bottom of rickety stairs. “Before we proceed…”
“You want to know what’s going on.” The young man nodded earnestly. “I’m Skip Robey. Peggy’s my intended, but she’s gone missing. There’s a matter of tosher business, here, sirs. You understand?”
“No,” Simon said.
“It’s not to be spoken of.” Skip’s hand balled to a fist. “We shouldn’t have. But, you see, the old man—” He indicated upstairs. “He wanted Peg to take up with a tosher, because she’s piebald. And my ma thought I could do better than a toshing girl, and when she got it in her head that old Jerry Sweetly thought I wasn’t good enough for Peg, well, she got her hump up too. So Peg told her. About being piebald, you see. She shouldn’t have spoken but she wanted my ma to understand what Pa Sweetly meant. And two days later, she was gone.”
This Romeo-and-Juliet business was hardly our responsibility, but Skip was a good-looking youth, and concern for his sweetheart was writ clear on his face. I am doubtless a sentimentalist, but I did not like to imagine those features distorted by grief and loss.
Simon is not a sentimentalist in any way, but he is profoundly chivalrous. No matter how tiresome he found love affairs, or the painstaking wringing-out of information from those who ought to give it in a prompt and logical fashion, he would not ignore a missing girl.
“What do you think has happened to her?” he asked.
“I’d have said man.” Skip’s face tightened, unconsciously assuming a belligerent aspect. “I’d have said, some villain… But the toshers fear worse. You have to talk to Pa Sweetly, he’ll tell you more than I can. Sir?”
“Yes?”
“Will you find her?” Skip had eyes of a remarkable brown, an intense deep chestnut warmth. They were full of pleading. “My Peg? Please?”
“We’ll do our best,” I said. “But we need information.”
He nodded. “Yes, sir. Thank you. I’ll take you up.”
Mr. Jeremiah Sweetly lay in the corner of a little room. The luxury of separate bedrooms was unknown here; judging by the pallets and truckle beds, there might be six or seven adults sleeping in this space, and probably all of them toshers who spent the days combing the sewers and riverbanks. The stench was like a blow. Thank God it was summer and the small window was propped open; all the manners in the world could not have prevented me clapping a handkerchief to my mouth if there had been no fresh air at all.
He was a wizened and wrinkled man, stained an unpleasant yellow with ingrained dirt and grease. A white scar that looked very like a human bite mark stood out on his scrawny neck. He would be stooped if he stood, no doubt, after years bent over to examine t
he flotsam of London’s waste, but currently he was bedbound, and racked by a rattling wet cough that shook his frame.
“Pa Sweetly,” Skip said. “These gentlemen are going to help find Peggy.”
Mr. Sweetly fixed us with a glance, bright and sharp. “No, boy. This is toshers’ business. We’ll ’ave no peelers ’ere.”
“We are not of the police,” I said. “This is Simon Feximal, and—”
Mr. Sweetly broke out in a fit of coughing that, I will admit, slightly alarmed me. One would not have been surprised to see him spit up a chunk of lung.
“Feximal?” he wheezed, eyes damp with the exertion. “The ghost-hunter?”
“And my companion, Robert Caldwell.”
Mr. Sweetly drew a breath. “As writes the books? In my house? Why, my girl—Peg—” A slight quiver on his face at the name. “She’s read ’em to me, twice over. Well, now. Mr. Caldwell and Mr. Feximal. I don’t suppose you’d be wishful to shake a tosher’s hand?”
Simon’s impatience with convention in our highly conventional era has often proved a difficulty, or an embarrassment. In this case, it did not. He was already stepping forward to take the old man’s wavering hand, with no appearance of hesitation or condescension. I could do no less, although I must admit to reflections on where Mr. Sweetly’s hand had been, and the necessity of washing my own as soon as possible.
“Get the gentlemen chairs,” Mr. Sweetly ordered Skip, who cast around and produced a couple of rickety stools. “Your idea, was it, boy, to ask Mr. Simon Feximal’s aid?”
“Grandma’s,” Skip said. I liked him the more for not taking the credit.
“Sharp woman, Martha Robey. Fine woman too, in her day, very fine. Now get along, boy, this ain’t for your ears.”
Skip glanced at us, whether checking on our comfort or the old man’s I could not say, and left the room. We took our stools by the sickbed.
“Now,” Simon said. “Your granddaughter, Peggy Flowers, is missing. And she is what you call a piebald girl. One eye grey, one blue. And you believe that her disappearance is not the work of man?”