I proceeded towards the next newspaper office.
Quite a long day ensued. I will spare the gentle reader a full account of my rebuffs and near-triumphs other than to say that, in general, males welcomed me and females did not; very much the opposite. I did manage to obtain a little information when males, but not females, were present. In two instances, young men—I cannot say gentlemen, as they implied that I owed them a certain familiarity in return—indeed I felt much mortified as I wheedled information out of them, but putting aside my maidenly revulsion, I found reason for satisfaction: Their accounts tallied. The “deadly nightshade” advertisement, they both said, had been placed by a most peculiar man with a grey goatee, wearing a top-hat although he seemed not to be upper class, evidently trying to make himself appear taller, for he was slight of height, stark-boned and altogether rather repulsive. Pressed as to what exactly, other than his lack of stature, caused this impression, they replied that he looked odd—“cadaverous,” said one. “Like a leper,” said the other. Asked how so, he seemed rather at a loss, but explained that there was something odd about the man’s face.
“Kind of like a dummy made of wax, if you’ve ever seen any such.”
It seemed to me that they might very well be depicting “just a long-faced tove in chin-whiskers ’n a top-hat, excepting that ’e took ’is nose off,” as a much-perturbed street urchin had once told me—a man with a false nose glued on, the juncture disguised with face putty. Such artifice might give his features a subtly disturbing tone, texture and rigidity.
Given what I had learned, I felt it safe to surmise that the sender of bizarre bouquets had indeed answered my advertisement, and while gratified to verify his existence, I worried: How to find this most interesting individual?
I had no idea.
Except that Pertelote—Mrs. Kippersalt—might know something of him, having reacted so oddly to my questions. “What’s ’e done now?” And having then angrily banned me from her shop.
Hmm.
I quite wanted to know where the Kippersalts lived and see whether Mr. Kippersalt cultivated hawthorn in his hothouse—indeed, I much desired a look at Mr. Kippersalt himself, to see whether his face seemed long, leprous, cadaverous, waxen, et cetera.
Might I find him by following Mrs. Kippersalt home after her work?
Not tenable, I decided after brief consideration. At this time of year, darkness had not yet fallen when the shops were closed, and if Mrs. Kippersalt were to catch sight of me, no matter how I dressed she would recognise me, having seen me in so many guises already. Also, I had no desire to repeat the adventure of “shadowing” someone. The last time, walking in the street to avoid the lamplight of the pavements, and I had nearly been flattened by a Clydesdale pulling a lumber-wagon.
No. I needed to find Mr. Kippersalt by other means.
Kippersalt: Not a common surname, and locating his place of residence should have been simple enough were London run like a sensible city, but it was not. Indeed, the world’s largest metropolis was also the world’s worst governed. London was organised—or, more properly, disorganised—into more than two hundred boroughs, each with its own records-keeper, tax-collector, constables, et cetera.
However, hypothesising that the Kippersalts lived not far from their shop—as was most often the case with older people engaged in commerce that had been established before the Underground had begun to whisk workers from the outskirts of London into the City—if the Kippersalts lived on Holywell Street or not far away, I might visit only two or three borough offices before I obtained some information.
As these thoughts occupied my mind, my footsteps took me back down Fleet Street towards the one newspaper office I had not yet visited: that of the Pall Mall Gazette.
As I entered, my heart sank, for I saw that a stiff and spinsterly woman sat behind the desk.
Just the same, I had to try. On the window ledge lay copies of the paper for the last several days. With my foolish heart pounding beneath the dagger concealed in my dress-front, I located the one I needed, opening it to find amongst the personal advertisements “422555 415144423451 334244542351545351 3532513451 35325143 23532551 55531534 313234 55441143543251331533 (IVY DESIRE MISTLETOE WHERE WHEN LOVE YOUR CHRYSANTHEMUM).”
Pointing it out to the dry stick of a woman behind the desk, I asked—indeed, I begged—“Could you tell me who placed this?”
“Indeed I could not,” she rapped out in answer.
Could not, or would not? She seemed quite the virgin queen of her small realm, one who would know everything.
I tried again. “Might you tell me, at least, whether it was a man or a woman?” If it was a woman, it had to be Mum.
And as I thought this, my heart froze, for if it were so, I still did not know how to respond.
But the old maid behind the desk snapped, “I can tell you nothing.”
I offered a bribe; she reacted angrily. Still, I pleaded with her for several minutes longer. Only when she threatened to summon a constable did I leave the office.
Very well, I had done my best.
Although some invisible cook seemed to be mixing a very strange pudding of emotion in my chest—was I distraught that I had found out nothing, or relieved?—yet in my thoughts I pushed Mum away for the time being.
There was a much more pressing matter to be attended to.
A deadly one, thank Yew.
Some hours later, I entered the humble abode of the much-bewildered Mrs. Tupper, who blinked several times when she saw me come in.
“Miss Meshle,” she asked uncertainly, “would you like some supper?”
“No, thank you, Mrs. Tupper.” I was in a great hurry to change into dark, inconspicuous clothing. “I have no time.” This fact did not improve my humour, for I felt as hollow as a drum, having missed luncheon as well.
“Eh?” The deaf old soul placed her hearing-trumpet to her ear.
“No! Thank you! Mrs. Tupper!” For once shouting was not a nuisance, but a relief to my feelings. My feet hurt abominably from slogging up and down Fleet Street plus visiting eight—no, ten—I had lost count—an inordinate number of borough offices without locating a single Kippersalt except one Augustus Kippersalt, who had been put away in Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum; he could not possibly be my man. Altogether, it had been a most trying day.
My only hope, then, was—after all—to get back to Pertelote’s by the time that much-ruffled oversized hen of a woman put her shutters up, to see where she went.
Limping upstairs to my room, I relieved my suffering feet of my unfortunately fashionable boots. I snatched off my wig and sloughed off my dress—peach-coloured taffeta interlaced with white “baby” ribbons, most unsuitable for concealment—then yanked a dark, commonplace woollen blouse and skirt out of my wardrobe to put on. I slipped my blistered feet into thick socks, then my blessedly comfortable old black boots. Having no time to wash the “recondite emollients” off my face, I smeared ashes from the hearth upon myself. Transformed thus to quite a commonplace Sally-down-the-alley, I sheathed my longest dagger in the front of my corset, grabbed for a rusty black shawl to throw over my head, and ran back downstairs, feeling rather than facing Mrs. Tupper’s puzzled gaze as I bolted out the door.
CHAPTER THE TWELFTH
“CAB!” I YELLED IMPERIOUSLY AT THE FIRST opportunity.
The driver, although no society prize himself, turned incredulously upon being hailed by an apparent woman of the slums. “Yer addressin’ me?”
I tossed him a golden coin, which instantly silenced his doubts and objections. “The Strand at St. Mary’s,” I told him as I climbed in, that corner being close enough to Holywell Street; he must not know where I was actually going. “And another sovereign if you get me there in ten minutes.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Plentiful cash-at-hand worked better than ravishing beauty to transform one’s status, under certain circumstances. “I’m your man. Me and old Conductor ’ere, we’ll see you there.” As he whipped his wretched
ewe-necked nag into a rapid trot, I tried not to think of anything I had ever read in Black Beauty, sitting back, bracing myself against the swaying of the conveyance and disciplining myself to consider instead what lay ahead.
I disliked rushing in such a headlong fashion into I knew not quite what, but I felt I must seize the moment, for in Pertelote’s—that is to say, in Mrs. Kippersalt’s anger I sensed an opportunity that might not occur again.
I was going to have to try to “shadow” her home after all, because she would take her anger along with her when she went there. She would direct her ire at her husband—“What ’ave ye done now?” And I quite wanted somehow, I did not yet know how, to hear the answer.
Moreover, I needed to look at Mr. Kippersalt. I had spent a great deal of imagination upon Mr. Kippersalt, and seeing him would either support or disprove my hypotheses, which were:
Suppose that a man, in war or in some unfortunate accident, had his face maimed, including but not limited to his nose.
Suppose that, in attempting to find ways to conceal the defects in his appearance, he became an expert in face putty, rubber features and the like; might he not open a shop specialising in these things, if only to obtain them readily for himself?
Being quite an unprepossessing man, might he not, for the sake of housekeeping and so on, marry an exceedingly plain woman who had no other prospects?
Perhaps an ambitious Cockney woman?
Having wed him not for love but for self-advancement, might this unusual woman improve herself to the extent that eventually she took over the running of the shop?
Might he not resent being pushed aside? Resent it to such an extent that he—
That he did what? Avenged himself upon Dr. Watson?
Whatever grudge could he possibly hold against Dr. Watson?
But wait a moment. Perhaps he blamed Watson for the loss of his nose? Suppose it had happened during the second Afghan War, in which Watson had served as an army surgeon? Perhaps Watson had amputated his wounded proboscis?
Brilliant, I congratulated myself mentally, pleased and excited to have hit upon such a plausible connection.
The speeding, swaying, veering cab in which I sat pulled to a jouncing halt at my destination.
I burst out before the wheels had quite come to rest, leaping into a full-tilt run as I threw the cabbie a sovereign even though I had no clock to tell me—had he got me here quickly enough?
He had.
Panting, I poked my head around the corner of Holywell Street just in time to see Mrs. Kippersalt closing the last shutters to secure her shop for the night. Then she went back inside to fasten them.
The last rays of daylight—blessed, sunny light most uncommon in London—lingered on the peaked roofs of the crowded old buildings as I waited, watching the door, expecting it to open and her to emerge with coat and hat, gloves and umbrella, to lock up and start homeward.
Daylight turned to dusk, and I still waited.
Mrs. Kippersalt had not come back out.
What ever in the world had become of her? Perhaps—oh, good heavens, no—she had gone out a back way?
Quite unlikely, for Holywell Street meandered along the edge of London’s most dense, clotted “rookery,” tottering houses shouldering one another, each containing a swarming “nest” of poverty-stricken inhabitants. Spaces—no, indeed, tunnels, for the upper storeys closed together overhead—passageways no wider than gutters separated these buildings from one another, unlighted, and no cleaner than gutters either, with rats abounding, as well as lower forms of human life. Inconceivable that Mrs. Kippersalt would venture alone into such a sewer-above-the-ground unless she looked forward to the attentions of Jack the Ripper or like-minded others.
Inconceivable that she could have slipped away without my seeing her.
Yet with each passing moment it seemed more and more evident that she had done so, and that I was a fool. And I called myself a perditorian? No, I was a mere girl, more fit to cut out paper dolls, I despaired as dusk deepened into dark. Lamplight glowed from rooms up above, but it did not comfort me, serving only to cast me into deeper shadow, for these ancient buildings loomed like a sea-carved cliff, their upper storeys jutting out over the pavement, gables protruding, each floor with eaves and bay windows overhanging the one below, so that they seemed built upside down, larger at the top than at the bottom, and likely to crash down upon one at any moment.
Like my little struggling self-made world. I tried to do things and find missing people, but to what effect? Here I stood in the dark, alone, cast aside by my own mother, feeling wretched enough to mew like a lost kitten—
A glow of lamplight sprang to life in the first storey over Pertelote’s. Light sprang to life in my mind, also, as it were. My melodramatic musings abruptly ceased. The next moment, abandoning misery along with concealment, I ran across the street—unpeopled now that the shop-windows stood dark—and up the pavement to Pertelote’s.
If that were she up there in the room over the pavement, the room under which swung the sign carved in the shape of a rooster—if, as might very well be the case, why had I not thought of it before!—she lived over her shop—
I had to see.
Quickly. Already they were quarreling—yes, it was Pertelote in the upstairs room; I recognised her contralto voice—she and someone else were arguing vehemently. Through a partially open window I could hear their angry tones from where I stood, although I could not catch the words.
I had to get closer.
But how?
I saw within a moment how to start, at least. Taking three quick strides to the shadowy, stinking gutter-gap between Pertelote’s and the next shop, I yanked my skirt above my knees, and by pressing parts of my personage against the opposing walls—truly, I cannot with decency detail how I ascended the narrow space, except to say that up I went rather like a sweep inside a chimney.
After the first six feet or so I felt small fear that anyone who might happen to pass by would spy me, for who would look upwards to notice a girl in such an unlikely position?
As my head neared the level of the gas-lit window, I could hear Pertelote more clearly. “You think I’m a fool? Ye’re up to some mischief, gadding about when my back’s turned. I want to know what.”
“I told you. Taking care of my own business.”
Wait a moment. The second voice, husky and low, sounded almost exactly like the first. Two women. Who was the other?
Where was Pertelote’s husband?
Pertelote scolded, “You got no business but to stay home and don’t plant no more people.”
“I didn’t plant nobody. Just filled out some papers to put ’im where ’e put me. The place ’ll do for ’im.”
I heard a gasp of shock, then Pertelote all but screamed, “You’re mad as a ’atter! Me ’usband was right to ’ave you put away!”
“But you made ’im get me out again, didn’t you?”
“Shut your wicked mouth. You—”
“You made ’im get me out again,” insisted the second woman, “because ye can take care of me at ’ome ’ere. Ye’ll always take care of me, won’t ye, Sissy?”
Something about the voice—not merely its peevish tone, but something as implacable as time—made the hairs prickle on the nape of my neck.
I had reached the limits of my “chimney,” the point at which the buildings’ walls joined together, and the window from which the voices issued remained above me and off to one side. I could hear but I could not see.
I had to see. See who was speaking. See who was so obstinately repeating, “Ye’ll always take care of me, I said; answer me. I know ye’ll always take care of me.”
Like a horizontal wall between me and that window jutted the eaves that sheltered the pavement below.
Quite hard, that pavement. Most unrelenting to fall upon.
Nevertheless…
I took a deep breath. Then I leaned out over the dark abyss, grasped the rounded wooden edge of the eaves with b
oth hands, and kicked away from the safety of my “chimney,” trying to swing myself upwards and onto the confounded obstacle.
I succeeded in throwing one knee over. However, at the same time, one hand lost its grip.
A knee, I quickly discovered, does not function as well as a hand under such circumstances. It slipped off. I had to exercise every iota of self-will not to scream.
“Ye’ll always take care of me, won’t ye, sister mine?” insisted the relentless contralto voice. “Say it. Ye’ll always take care of me.”
Would that someone might take care of me! Catching hold of the too-smooth edge of the eaves again with my other hand, I hoisted myself with strength spurred by panic, and managed to get the upper portion of my personage over the top, then my lower limbs, then roll away from the edge. Panting, I found myself lying on a slantwise sort of ledge.
“Ye’ll always take care of me,” that fanatical voice went on, singsong, as I sprawled, gasping for breath, scared half out of my wits, and that voice added frisson to my fear. Each word chilled me. Not only the tone, but the substance: take care of me, take care of me—it was, in the heart of my heart, what I had always wanted—of my family…
“Ye’ll always take care of me, won’t ye, sister mine? Say it! Ye’ll always take care of me.”
“Of course I will always take care of you,” Pertelote snapped finally. “I always ’ave done, ’aven’t I?”
Triumphantly the other responded, “Not when ye let the rats eat me face.”
CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH
RATS. EAT. FACE.
If she’d said it a moment earlier, before I’d gained the ledge, I believe I would have lost my grip and fallen to nearly certain death on the pavement below. As it was, I flattened myself like a squirrel as the falcon flies overhead, trembling, my fingers clutching at the shingles and my thoughts clawing at an even more slippery slope.
The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets Page 7