by Jon Redfern
TRUMPETS SOUND NO MORE
JON REDFERN
A Victorian Detective Story
Anne McDermid & Associates Ltd.
Copyright © 2007 John Redfern
The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise stored in a retrieval system, without the expressed written consent of the publisher, is an infringement of the copyright law.
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So quick bright things come to confusion.
— William Shakespeare
LONDON, 1840, a singular immensity, a Babylon of curiosities, none more splendid than the edifice on the corner of Brydges and Russell Streets, the queen of theatres, Old Drury. Granted she is formidable, a pile of marble dressed with a portico. Her classical exterior suggests a court of law. But enter her front doors, draw in the perfume of oranges and human sweat. The huge auditorium contains benches, boxes, gas light chandeliers. Listen as the orchestra fills with violins and trumpets. Beyond them arches a frame of gold opening into a realm of shadows. Here is the stage, the terrain of the painted actor, Hecate’s Cave of illusions: farces, tragedies, burlettas, extravaganzas. Old Drury stands oblivious, a glittering domain of dreams beyond the grime, cruelty and injustice of the greater London world.
CHAPTER ONE
Friday, December 18, 1840
We begin on Brydges Street at seven o’clock, the hour the farce begins in Old Drury. There on the steps across from the theatre’s entrance sits Betty Loxton, fourteen, a basket in her lap. December cold turns her little hands blue. On her head is a tattered nankeen bonnet, the one she has worn now for four years, the one she sewed herself, when her brother’s eye was not upon her, from remnants of the yellow cotton, a tag of silk and ribbons once belonging to a younger sister gone six months to her grave. Thin shivering waif, Betty slowly looks up and sees through throngs of rushing ticket-buyers the still figure of a man in a black long-coat.
He stands tall, round in the chest, his dark hair tangled and straggling.
Betty wishes he were no more than a phantom come to haunt the city’s moon-washed back streets. He seems so like a spirit, she thinks. He appears then disappears momentarily as pedestrians cross to and fro in front of him. Passing carriages along Brydges Street spray him with cobblestone mud, for he lingers too close to the kerb. “Serves him right,” Betty whispers to herself. When the man starts to meander toward her, his broken-heeled boots slip on the slick paving stones. He stops to blow his nose, one finger to one side, then to the other, his head bent over. Betty shifts her basket. She tastes the icy December air deep in her throat.
“He won’t do you no mischief,” she prays.
Betty Loxton knows enough about mischief, especially from the roughs of Hart Street who loll by her spot in the evenings where she does her hawking. The Willy Gangs she calls them, coster lads and message-runners, runts and fools no older than she by a year, caps pulled low, kerchiefs tied with double knots around their skinny necks. “Hey, Pretty,” they tease. “Come for a dance and a kiss, too?” Foolish is as does, thinks Betty. She is just fourteen this past November, with no cough in her lungs. A pretty girl with ivory coloured skin and blue eyes. There is a steadfast quality about her when she lifts her face to the frosty sky, her arm held out. She never clutches her little ones too hard, in case she bruises their delicate skins: “Apples, Winter Reds. London’s finest.”
Now Betty must look smart. Though her boots are too loose and her sleeves soiled from carrying her basket, she must practice her smile. Soon the “quality” will draw up in their phaetons and private carriages; the ladies in silk may deign to stop and admire her polite nod and perhaps toss a ha’penny to her for a spit-polished Winter Red. Betty finishes counting her pennies in her basket. She puts the plumper fruit on top, all the while avoiding looking at the tall man moving faster through the crowd. The pain in her ribs still presses against her. Now don’t be foolish on that, she scolds herself. Don’t vex yourself with the memory, or the pain will only hurt more. She dares to peer ahead through the brown drizzle. I do wish he was a stranger, she thinks of the man, like one of those brutes who stumble along Brydges at this hour, one with a hunger in him, needing a visit to the back stairs of Covent Garden theatre, where ladies of the town charge tuppence for a favour.
“I know Jacks like him what walk with that look to their eye,” she murmurs.
Alas, no time for slacking, for the man is nearly upon her. Tall, yes, a country man with thick fists and knuckles. Just as Brother John said at breakfast this very day: “Look you sharp, sis,” he warned. “Uncle comes to aid you. He shall find you at your spot by the stroke of seven, no doubt he shall.”
Laughter erupts from the theatre. Watermen line up by the theatre’s side entrances, hauling slopping buckets from the pump in the alley to cabs and gigs, the horses stamping, their mouths dipping into the buckets to suck in the water. What a shoving place, Betty complains. The tall man now looms beside her. She pulls back and studies his flat collar and his cuffs, old but of good weave. What a sorrow rests in his face. The man crouches on the pavement below Betty’s step. His smell reminds her of a stall. His great hand delves into his coat pocket to retrieve a bit of brown paper.
“Hallo, young pippin.”
His voice is rough. Betty stands immediately and curtsies.
“So, you are she. The one. Little Betty.”
Betty looks down. “Welcome, Uncle.”
“I am Thomas, brother to your mam.”
“Yes, sir.”
Thomas hands Betty the piece of brown paper. On it are a number and scrawled lines.
“I read very little, sir.”
“I none at all, mite. But my wife, she wrote it for me, she can read and write pretty good, and she said, now Thomas if you shall get lost, show this to any London policeman; they are a good lot and can point you the way.”
“I can lead you, Uncle.”
“Come then, gal. No time for shyness. Go on, you’re a good hand, you’ve done famous for yourself. Your Uncle Thomas has come as good as gold. I can settle accounts for you, Little Betty.”
Betty hears kindness in his words, and yet she does not want him to come with her. She is in a pickle. “A pickle indeed,” she whispers. But her uncle waves his arm. She gets up and slings her basket onto the top of her head. She points to her right, and Uncle Thomas squints into the distance then shakes his head. “You are sure, mite?”
Betty wants to laugh at him and his country ignorance. She has worked these streets since she was four and is cousin to every shop window, every doorstep, every iron fence and painted sign. “Sure, Uncle,” is her answer. She scrambles on ahead, her footsteps quick and deliberate. Straight to Russell Street, then a turn to her left and onward toward the arcades of Covent Garden market. Thomas follows close behind. He gawks at gables and dormers. When he stumbles on the kerb, he curses the toiling horses and carriages in the road before him.
“Careful, Uncle, stay awares,” Betty cautions.
“I aren’t used to city lanes, you know it, mite.”
“All the more reason to take care. You came by coach to Surrey side?” Betty amazes herself for asking such a bold question.
“Aye. With a lot of chattering monkeys, I wager. Too loud for such as me.”
Betty wants to fly away. It is not Uncle Thomas she fears, it is what he can do for her that made her toss in her sleep the night before and lay aside her meagre breakfast of bread and coffee. The memory of her sweetheart pricks her, and she starts to weep. Yes, he has done her harm, but he was so dear, so lovely in his voice and his way of talking. Sweetheart, he called her, sworn
to love her. Promised to cherish her, so she imagined. Not so. And not deserving of what Uncle Thomas is to do to him. Oh, no. The machine was never meant to hurt her. Her sweetheart said so. He shouted at her afterwards when she tumbled down. Yes, he sent her then into the street with only a penny. But he was kindly in doing so, and such a sight of him in her mind’s eye makes Betty wipe her tears and ignore her aching ribs.
Beside her now walks a man just arrived in London. He is here to right things, even if Betty herself does not want things righted. No good can come from hurting, for that is what this business is all about.
“Little Betty, hurry on.” Thomas’s voice startles her.
“Come then,” Betty says, her voice again full of resolve. Gaslight shines all the way along Henrietta Street. Betty points at last to the tavern of the Two Spies. All around her are the sounds of laughter and drinking. She hesitates at the entrance to the raucous place then motions to a set of gloomy stairs just inside the tavern’s swinging door.
“And so, mite, where are they?”
“Yonder, Uncle. Yonder.”
* * *
The second floor chamber above the Two Spies spread narrow and long, with a brick hearth at one end. Two candles in sconces pooled light near a large table with chairs. Blackened beams stretched overhead. A woman occupied one of the chairs. Her drawn face, lit by a taper on the table, showed the toil she’d suffered since childhood. Pockmarks dappled her cheeks. Sandy-coloured hair shorn to ear-length framed two mean eyes. Thomas went up and embraced her. Pineapple Pol held her country brother then let him go. She leaned forward into the taper’s flickering light and pointed at young Betty Loxton now standing beside her.
“Show him,” she said.
Betty Loxton reluctantly lifted her cotton bodice. “See,” Pineapple Pol said. Her finger pressed the blue bruise like a ring around Betty’s puckered belly.
“See here. He hung her up from the contraption and nearly killed her.”
Uncle Thomas sneered. Another man was in the room. A big man Betty feared more than she did her mother, Pineapple Pol.
“Right rounder, he is,” Brother John said.
John the Pawn stepped forward into the taper’s light. He shook the hand of Uncle Thomas. John the Pawn’s thin face resembled his mother’s, as did his short sandy hair. A scar scored his chin. He wore his costerman’s cap far back on his high forehead. Betty smelled on his clothes the familiar market stench of straw and wet fruit and dung. John the Pawn tapped his clay pipe on the edge of the table. From his upper pocket he took out a fresh plug of tobacco, stuffed it hard into the bowl of the pipe before leaning it into the taper’s flame, pulling in breath so that the plug ignited in a red glow.
“You, you foolish girl,” Pineapple Pol said. She held Betty’s chin. “No more of that dreaming. No business of yours is the stage. A stager you wanted to be? No, my girl.”
“Let it lie, mam,” John the Pawn said.
“I cannot, son John. See, here, Thomas, how her whole self was almost killed by him.”
Uncle Thomas raised his head toward the beamed ceiling. “We can do it, back in kind, for sure. I will do it.”
Betty pulled down her bodice. Pineapple Pol waved her aside, and Betty sat in a corner by the hearth. Thomas took a pint offered him by John the Pawn and drank the entire contents in one swallow. John the Pawn pulled out a chair and suggested Thomas rest his legs. “No. I thank you, nephew. But there is no time for resting. We must to our commotion soon, for my wife wishes me back home in Surrey by noon tomorrow.”
On hearing these words, Betty began to weep once more. Pineapple Pol came to her, her hands planted on her hips. She leaned close to her daughter’s ear.
“You make nine pence a day. Don’t you grumble and mew, do you hear? You keep dry and gets your bread and butter.”
“Leave her, mam,” said John the Pawn. “She’s not about to go at it again. Though you can make a shilling in the theatres, you can, for the crowd actors. I seen it put on the bills near Covent Garden. What is the shame in that?”
“No shame at all,” Pineapple Pol replied. “But my Betty ain’t no dancer or singer. Not her. And the likes of stagers, they can turn a young fool’s head. See here, what the villain caused us. We almost lost her. What good is a cripple-child in the market? On the streets? I’ll no more of it. He needs a lesson, that villain. And you, stupid gal, you shall get a beating again if you go nears him ever at all.”
The door to the room opened, and a thick-set man walked in. He wore a costerman’s cap, and he tipped it to Pineapple Pol and the others.
“Thomas, this fellow’s here to help you and John with the business.” The thick set man put out his hand to shake Thomas’s.
“Well, then, all of you,” said John the Pawn. “We have tonight to go. We know where to follow him. But it must be late. After the theatres are shut up for midnight.”
“Betty, get off now,” snapped Pineapple Pol. She yanked her daughter’s arm and made her stand. Then she shoved her toward the door. “You get back to your spot, you hear. Get rid of the rest of your Reds tonight. Get along. No use staying here.”
Betty wiped her eyes, tied her bonnet and lifted her basket.
“Do you have it, Thomas?” asked Pineapple Pol, turning and walking back to the table.
Betty hesitated at the door to the stairs and looked toward the four figures standing around the table. The taper threw a huge shadow on the wall as Thomas pulled open his black long- coat. Betty stepped forward to see better. A pocket inside the coat was heavily stitched. Along one seam a strap of leather held what Betty thought at first was a snake. But then Thomas unbuttoned the strap and slid out a rough-hewn club.
“Oh, no,” Betty whispered. “You cannot.”
“This will do it,” Thomas said. He cracked the club hard across the table top. Dust puffed up, and the taper tipped to the floor amidst harsh laughter from Pineapple Pol.
“See, girl,” John the Pawn shouted at Betty, his voice full of mocking anger. “A bruise for a bruise. Mr. Arrogance will not be walking so tall tomorrow breakfast time.”
Uncle Thomas grinned at Pineapple Pol. “Best he hide himself,” he said, “if he wants to keep breathing.”
Betty rushed out the door and pulled it shut behind her. She stopped two steps down the stairway. From below her came tavern laughter and chatter. Even through that noise, she heard her own mother say:
“Then tonight it shall be. And I thank you all for your pains.”
CHAPTER TWO
Saturday, December 19, 1840
Dawn hovered over the inner city as a young police constable in a stiff collar hastened through streets near Chancery Lane. His bull’s-eye lantern rocked to and fro, and by the time he stopped at Number 6 Cursitor Street, he was breathless. His right fist knocked hard on the door.
“Inspector Owen Endersby?” he shouted. “A pressing matter, sir.”
Presently, the self-same man appeared, a broad, tall figure wearing a frown and a rumpled nightshirt. After a short conference with the nervous constable, Inspector Endersby went back inside. Within moments, a cab arrived and soon after, as light showed golden on the window panes of Cursitor Street, the constable and the inspector climbed into the cab and rattled up passageways north to Holborn, bypassing the Inns of Court, Gray’s Inn and northward to Doughty Street where, the constable explained, a body had been found, a body most “foul and bloodied, sir. No doubt a murder, sir.”
“No doubt,” answered Owen Endersby, his eyes still heavy with sleep.
The cab pulled up to a wide, handsomely-kept three storey brick house. An iron railing guarded the area staircase leading down to the kitchen below street level. Over the polished front door was a half-moon window. Two stout chimneys capped the steep roof. Inspector Endersby noted immediately that they were oddly smokeless for such a brisk December morning.
“Are the servants not up and about?” the inspector asked of the constable keeping guard at the railing. The young
man stood at attention, wearing white leather gloves.
“No evidence of such, sir. No below-stairs residents as far as we can determine.”
Inspector Endersby told the young policeman to stand at ease. Endersby then reached into a pocket and took out a candied chestnut from the box his wife Harriet had given him. In spite of his hasty house-leaving this morning, he’d had time to put on his favorite plum-coloured waistcoat. His gouty foot was merely a dull ache for the moment. As always, elation and anxiety preceded the viewing of a mutilated body.
A man in a black mackintosh approached. “Inspector, sir.”
“Caldwell. Here on the dot? No doubt you have been efficient.” Endersby tried hard to mask his snide tone. Detective Sergeant Caldwell, in his early forties, had restless peering eyes and a mouth too full of teeth. He reminded Endersby of a rat-catcher’s terrier with his closely-shaven head. On its top sat a frayed, low-crowned hat.
“Sir. I have done a bit of rummaging already. It was the neighbour’s servant who informed the police at the station on Gray’s Inn Road in the early morning. Said his master had heard crashing noises in the night and was afeared. Seems the night-watch sergeant had trouble locating the station inspector—he has an ill wife—so Gray’s Inn notified you. ”
“Thank you, Caldwell.”
“There is more, sir.”
“Carry on,” said Endersby.
“Schools are rampant in this quarter, sir,” Caldwell continued. “The Boswell School has been caught hereabouts, nicking silver and such.”
“No servants, but crashing noises. Where is the body, then?”
“In the front parlour on the first floor, a male in evening clothes.” Sergeant Caldwell glanced sharply at the two constables standing near the inspector. “These young constables have kept out of harm’s way. Nothing’s been touched.”