A Burden Shared: The Dundee Murders

by Malcolm Archibald

  “Have you seen any strangers around here?” Sturrock altered tack.

  Hitchins laughed until Mendick smacked the cane down once more. “Aah! Careful Sergeant! Half the people here are strangers. There are draggletails and pickpockets, footpads and Greenlandmen and Baltic men in every pub from Craig Pier to the Ferry. Do you really think I know them all?”

  Mendick lowered the cane. “You know more than you are saying, John, that we know. Why were you scared to come in here? And don’t draw the long bow.”

  “Christ, man! There’s no need for tales in this place. Did you see Deaf Davie? Did you see what they done to him? They castrated him, Sergeant, and stuck them in his mouth! Then they sewed his lips together! Jesus Christ alive, Sergeant! And you ask why I am scared to come in here?” Hitchins looked around as if expecting the mysterious ‘they’ to appear out of the dark shadows surrounding them.

  Mendick nodded to Sturrock. “Who did it, John? Tell us who did it and we’ll let you go. But if you don’t tell us, we’ll tie you up and leave you here.”

  In the dim gaslight, Hitchin’s eyes glittered and swivelled right and left. His lips clamped shut.

  Mendick smacked the cane down hard and the lead tip scraped Hitchin’s scalp, drawing blood and causing the beggar to yell and grab at his head.

  “Oh, my goodness! Look what has happened. Is it not fortunate you are blind and can’t see the mess? Tell us who did it, John.”

  Hitchins raised his hand to his head then looked at the blood on it. “You bastard, Mendick! You’re as bad as they are.”

  “Oh, I am worse, Johnny boy, much worse.” Mendick leaned closer. “You see, I have the law on my side. I am invulnerable. I know exactly where the law ends and my rules begin. Now, you have a choice. We can leave you here and spread the word you told us everything. We can arrest you and have you jailed or transported, or we can let you go, once you have told us exactly what we want to know. So who killed David Thoms, and why?”

  Sturrock had been a silent spectator until that moment but now he stepped forward and winked. “Sergeant; we don’t want to go too far here . . . remember what happened to the Irishman.”

  Mendick glowered at him. “The Irishman was a mistake. If he had done what I said he’d still be alive.”

  “But Sergeant . . .”

  As intended, the conversation encouraged Hitchins into speech. “I never saw nothing.”

  “No, you never did,” Mendick agreed, “because you are blind. But tell us what you heard, Johnny. Tell us what you heard.”

  “This!” Ducking suddenly, Hitchins made a lunge past Sturrock for the door, but Mendick had anticipated this and thrust his cane between the beggar’s ankles. The man staggered and swore loudly. Sturrock threw him against the wall and held him firm.

  “Shall I break his neck, Sergeant?”

  Mendick frowned, then shook his head, “Not yet, Constable. We’ll give him one last chance.” He cracked the weighted end of his cane into the palm of his hand.

  “There were four of them!” Hitchins yelled. “I saw four men go into the close beside the shop. It might not have been the murderers but it might have been.”

  Mendick pressed his mouth against Hitchins’ ear. “You saw four men? Describe them to me.”

  With Sturrock’s forearm thrust against his throat, Hitchins looked from one policeman to the other. He spoke in a hoarse whisper. “One was just normal, ordinary, but he carried a portmanteau. The others were smaller and wore cloaks and hats. One wore a wide-awake hat.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Mendick said. “Pray relax your hold on this most helpful gentleman, Constable Sturrock, but hold him secure.”

  Once he had begun to talk, Hitchins seemed reluctant to stop. “They got out of a coach. The normal man drove the coach there and back, it might have been a brougham but I’m not sure.”

  “Well done, thy good and faithful servant. Now their faces. What were they like?” Mendick intercepted Hitchins’ glance towards the door and shook his head. “No, you won’t get past us.”

  Hitchins looked at the floor. He answered in a whisper. “They never had faces. There was nothing there.”

  “What?” Sturrock slammed his forearm against Hitchins’ throat again. “Don’t give us any more fairy stories.”

  “Wait now. No faces? Did they have heads?” Mendick asked.

  “Of course they had heads,” Hitchins said, “but no faces, just a sort of blackness where their faces should be.”

  Mendick nodded, “Don’t throttle him, Sturrock, he’s doing his best. Are you saying they wore masks, John?”

  Hitchins nodded as much as he could with Sturrock’s arm against his throat. “Yes! Yes, they might have been wearing masks.”

  Sturrock again relaxed his forearm. “Pray tell me again what their names were?” he asked with such casual skill that Mendick hid his smile.

  “I never said,” Hitchins was not so easily caught out.

  “No, but you are about to,” Sturrock retorted. “If you tell us, we will keep this as a little secret between ourselves. If you do not, then . . .” he shrugged, “the whole criminal class of Dundee will hear how helpful you were.”

  “Oh Christ, you wouldn’t?” Hitchins looked from Sturrock to Mendick and back.

  Sturrock nodded cheerfully. “Yes we would,” he said. “And then we would use you as bait.”

  “Oh, Jesus, no!” Hitchins dropped his eyes. “It was the Ghost.” He spoke in a soft whisper. “China Jim. Oh, dear God, I am a dead man.”

  “Not necessarily,” Mendick told him. “Not if we get to him first.”

  Hitchins shrunk against the wall. “You don’t understand, do you? You bluebottle bastards never understand nothing! Why do you think he’s called the Ghost? Because nobody knows who he is and nobody ever sees him, that’s why!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Mendick sat in his tiny office beneath the hissing gaslight, surveyed the litter of papers on his desk and sighed. He stuffed tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, struck a fusee to light it and pondered the new information. China Jim: the name sounded like a curse from the vilest alleyways of the city, a breath of foetid air into this room that smelled of beeswax and soap. What sort of name was that anyway? Perhaps it was a nickname given to a Chinaman who had some sort of association with Great Britain? Maybe a coolie from one of the ships that called at Chinese ports?

  Mendick puffed blue smoke. “China Jim,” he said. “Mr Mackay mentioned him and here he is. Dear God, maybe the Triads have indeed come over here.”

  Sturrock grunted. “I knew it was some foreign bugger that butchered Thoms like that. No Briton could act like that.”

  Mendick began to pace the room, tapping his cane against the furniture. “I think better when I walk,” he said, before Sturrock asked. “Now. Mr Mackay does not want this China Jim’s name mentioned. I don’t agree. I want him to know we are after him. I want to flush him out of whatever pestiferous hole he infests.” He stopped and cracked the cane on Sturrock’s desk. “Right, Sturrock, we’ll do it my way. Circulate the name China Jim to every police force in Great Britain; see if anybody has heard of it, and ask the beat constables if they have seen these three small men in cloaks and hats, or if anybody saw a brougham.”

  “It sounds like Chinese men in disguise,” Sturrock said slowly.

  “Do you have many Chinese in Dundee? Are they coolies off the ships perhaps?” Mendick could not think of ever seeing any in the streets. Chinese were a rare sight in London let alone a smaller town like this.

  Sturrock shook his head. “I don’t know of a single one, Sergeant.” He had the transcripts of the court records in front of him as he continued to search for a seaman burglar.

  Mendick sat back down and allowed the pipe smoke to haze around his head. “I don’t like this, Sturrock. I don’t like the idea of some foreign murderer butchering and eating people, and I don’t like to think that criminals can conceal themselves behind aliases.”

&n
bsp; “Everything about this man is a mystery, Sergeant. We don’t know who he is, we don’t know which locality he infests or even what he does to earn his reputation and his money.” Sturrock tapped the mouthpiece of his pipe on the desk. “All we know is the criminal classes are scared of him and now we see why.”

  “Is he a thief? Perhaps he controls the thieves, like Jonathan Wilde did in London last century?” Mendick looked up. “Has there been an increase in theft and housebreaking since China Jim appeared? Have there been more major robberies?”

  Sturrock shook his head. “Trade is poor just now, Sergeant. There is always a slight increase in housebreaking and simple theft when trade is bad, and an increase in drunkenness and assaults when there’s more employment and money around. There is nothing to suggest that China Jim is controlling our local criminals.”

  “This is a complete fudge,” Mendick watched his smoke curl around the gas light. “We don’t know what this Chinese fellow does. Maybe he doesn’t even exist! Maybe he is just a wild notion of Hitchins.”

  “The murder was real enough, Sergeant,” Sturrock reminded him. He pointed to the document that he had been studying. “What about this, Sergeant? I might have something. Here’s a seaman who was sent to the Circuit Court for housebreaking.”

  “That’s more the ticket!” Mendick said. “Was he convicted?”

  “Lord Cockburn gave him 18 months with hard labour back in August 1847.” Sturrock kept his finger on the entry.

  “August ’47. He’ll be out now, hungry and resentful. That sounds promising, what is this enterprising fellow’s name?” Mendick smiled, “He’s not Chinese by any chance is he?”

  “Josiah Oldbuck. Doesn’t sound Chinese.” Sturrock said.

  “Not in the least. I had hoped the name would be Marmion. Do you have his address?” Mendick took his hat from its hook and lifted his cane. “We can step along there now.”

  Sturrock shook his head. “The only address we have is a lodging house in Couttie’s Wynd − one of these penny-a-night hell holes for the transient. We don’t have anywhere permanent for him.”

  Mendick replaced his hat. “All right. I want the town scoured for this fellow and for Robert Marmion. I’ll tell Mr Mackay right now”

  “It will have to be tomorrow, Sergeant,” Sturrock said, “look at the clock. Wee Donnie went home hours ago.”

  Mendick swore and looked outside. Darkness swathed Dundee, penetrated only by the gas lamps that illuminated the main streets and the pinpricks of light at a hundred windows. He grunted. “We’d better get some sleep then, Sturrock, and start again tomorrow. At least we may have a name to pursue.”

  Thick with the smoke from a thousand fires, the night wrapped itself around Mendick as he walked to his lodgings. He heard the click of heels on paving stones and turned. The footsteps stopped immediately. Mendick waited a second and walked on, listening. He checked again before he entered the close that led to his house, saw the flick of a cloak, green in the ghostly glow of a gas lamp, then she slipped into shelter. He bolted his front door, locked his shutters, placed his single shot pistol under the pillow and his pepperpot revolver in his boot and went to bed.

  Before he slept, Mendick allowed himself a small smile. He had expected a reaction from China Jim once Hitchins blabbed, and there it was. The woman in the green cloak was a sign he was pushing in the right direction.

  Mendick eased the cramp in his hand and sighed at the ink stains on his fingers. Sometimes he felt more like a clerk than an active Officer of Police. He looked at the pile of letters and documents he had written, glanced up at the great circular wall clock whose sonorous ticking had kept time to the incessant scratching of his pen and shook his head. Eight o’ clock. That was the day gone and what had he done?

  He had scoured the country for references to Jonathan Oldbuck and Robert Marmion. He had had their names sent to the police offices in the surrounding towns and all the major cities of Great Britain. He had ordered the day constables to search and to ask for both men, and he had warned the coach operators and proprietors to keep a careful watch. He had contacted shipping companies in the hope they had him on the muster records of one of their vessels and he had asked the harbour police if the names were known to them. Nothing.

  The door opened and a sergeant stepped in, the top of his head nearly brushing the door lintel. “Mr Mackay said you had orders for me, Mendick?”

  Mendick heard the resentment in the man’s voice. He looked up. “I want you to relieve the day watchmen at the railway station and the docks, Morrison. We are the same rank, so I cannot order you.” He allowed himself a smile, but saw no responding warmth in Morrison’s face. “However, Mr Mackay placed me in charge of this investigation and I intend to pursue our enquiries with the utmost vigour. I am sure you agree.”

  Morrison nodded stiffly. The use of the word ‘our’ may have thawed him a little, but Mendick was not prepared to unbend any further. His objective was to apprehend China Jim and leave Dundee.

  “Wait, Morrison,” Mendick lifted his hat and cane, “with your permission, may I join the night patrol?”

  The request altered Morrison’s attitude completely, as Mendick hoped it might.

  “With pleasure, Mendick.” Morrison did not smile, but he stepped aside to allow Mendick passage which was as genuine a gesture of respect as any. “I will detail Sturrock to accompany you.”

  Mendick nodded. He had got his wish and Morrison had retained his dignity so all parties were satisfied. He was gradually learning how to be a sergeant.

  Couttie’s Wynd was a narrow, slightly curved channel that made Candle Lane appear a residential paradise. It cut between four-storey high tenements, lined with cheeping houses, the lowest form of illicit drinking dens, and lodging houses. Mendick checked his watch, it was just past one. He blew on the face and rubbed it clean.

  “That’s the third time you have done that,” Sturrock said.

  “My late wife gave me this watch,” Mendick told him. “She saved for months to buy it and it’s about all I have left of her.”

  “I see.” Sturrock nodded understanding. In common with most of the Dundee police, he valued family. “Here we are, Sergeant. We can try in here. It’s a known den of predators and members of the light-fingered craft use it.

  The sign said: Mrs Kelly: Fine Lodgings; the reality was a sunken door with peeling paint. Sturrock winked and cracked his staff against the door with no ceremony. The noise echoed around the wynd. Someone shouted for silence. There was a few moments delay and a middle-aged woman opened the door. She held up the stump of a candle to inspect her visitors.

  “Oh. It’s the thief-catchers.” She made no move to let them pass until Sturrock pushed her aside.

  “Have you any of our folks with you the night, Mistress?”

  Mendick followed inside where the stench of damp and full chamber pots and unwashed humanity hit him like a fist.

  “I dinnae think so, but ye can look. I keep a respectable house, mind.”

  Mrs Kelly glowered at Mendick through bloodshot eyes but handed Mendick the candle. Hot wax spilled onto his fingers. Sturrock led them into the first of two rooms and flicked the beam of his bull’s eye lantern over the three couples laying in three beds that touched each other. Two of the couples wore their day clothes, the third had dispensed with that covering and were naked. The man had the letter D tattooed into his chest in three different places, and BC in one. Mendick knew the army had tattooed him as a deserter and a bad character, but Sturrock ignored him completely.

  “Just labouring folk,” Sturrock spoke without interest. “Who’s in the closet, Mistress?” He shone his lantern into the corner of the room where a panelled door was wedged open. A young woman was propped up against the walls inside, her hair a tangled mess over her face, her dress soiled and filthy and her legs folded beneath her. Sturrock nodded.

  “Jemima MacFarlane,” he said. “She is a pickpocket, thief and lady of ill-repute. If anybody knows th
e criminal classes, she will.” He nudged her legs with an ungentle boot. “Here! Jemima! Wake up! Sergeant Mendick has questions for you.”

  The woman opened her eyes, focussed on Sturrock and swore.

  “That’s right, Jemima.” Sturrock bent over and helped her to a sitting position. “Just a few questions and we’ll let you sleep again in your nice cupboard.”

  Mendick placed his candle on the window ledge where its light pooled onto Jemima’s face. He knelt beside her.

  “I am Detective Sergeant Mendick of Scotland Yard and the Dundee Police,” he introduced himself. “I am looking for a man named Marmion. Do you know anybody of that name?”

  Jemima tossed back her head. “No.”

  “You may have heard of a Josiah Oldbuck then?” Mendick moved the candle slightly so the light was full in Jemima’s face.

  “That’s not a real name,” Jemima closed her eyes and breathed out fumes that could have come straight from a whisky still.

  There had been no hesitation in her answers, no wavering. Jemima’s eyes had been no more or less focussed as she spoke. Mendick believed she was telling the truth. He raised the candle so the light was directly in line with her eyes. “You answered those questions uncommonly well, Jemima. I have just one more for you. Tell me when you last saw China Jim.”

  Jemima looked away. “Bugger off, bluebottle.” Her tone had roughened, her voice slurred and the words came out quickly. “You come in here without a by-your-leave and ask your questions. Why can’t you just bugger off and leave honest folk in peace?” She raised her voice into a scream, “Bugger off!”

  Sturrock grabbed her hair and began to haul her upright, but Mendick touched his arm. “No, constable; she is scared. She will tell us nothing, or anything at all, to get rid of us.”

  It was the same in the crowded closes of the Overgate and among the Irish of the Scouringburn. Nobody admitted to knowing the names Marmion or Oldbuck, but when China Jim was mentioned, the response was either a shrug or a look of frozen horror that was quickly replaced by denial. Nobody volunteered any helpful information.