Trumpets Sound No More

by Jon Redfern

  “I thank you, Mr. Sloane.”

  “I assume the burial will be covered by Mr. Cake’s income or savings,” the surgeon then asked. “He appears to have been—God grant him grace—a man of some means.”

  “Most likely, sir,” replied the Thaddeus Arne. “I shall, of course, send soon enough for the coffin maker. We in the parish can look into such a matter.”

  Inspector Endersby then spoke. “My sergeant and I will endeavour to find some clues to his connections—to kin, to friends, to hirelings, if there are any—to all that may concern the unfortunate.”

  Agreeing, the surgeon said, “He was a strong, youthful man. What revenge was this that must befall such a fellow?”

  “If in fact it was revenge,” replied Endersby. “We must investigate further for the sake of aiding the coroner’s inquest. We must see if there are any papers or documents in this house which may afford us a direction—a by-way, as I like to call it—toward a suspect.”

  The beadle stepped forward. He seemed restless and impatient, his shoulders shifting as he waited to speak. “There is a tavern of good repute two streets from here—The Oak and Crown—where the coroner will swear in his jury and hold proceedings,” he said, his words separated by huge breaths. “Gentlemen, I beg your leave and rely on your presence at the tavern this afternoon. I must start my soliciting.”

  Thaddeus Arne hesitated at the doorway. As the beadle, he had to act quickly to petition for a jury of peers and go about knocking on the neighbours’ doors to select reliable witnesses—a footman, upstairs maid, water carrier, any idle watcher at a window—who must have seen something. The beadle rushed down the hall, his ledger open to take notes, a flurry of loose-flying paper hampering his progress.

  “We must all testify honestly to what we have seen, gentlemen,” Endersby added. “So please be alert and look once again on this horrible place. The coroner is a busy man and must have straight answers.”

  With formalities finished, the surgeon shook hands with Endersby and left, requesting beforehand that one of the constables come and fetch him in Mecklenburg Square for the coroner’s inquest. The two young police officers moved their eyes around the dank room one more time before walking toward the staircase. Endersby followed close behind. “Wait,” he whispered, though Caldwell was already moving down the stairs. In the hall, Endersby took a step toward what resembled a black sooty ball lying on the floor. On picking it up, his broad fingers felt the coarse grains of a cheap cut of tobacco. Part ash, part raw leaves, the plug gave off a salty perfume. He pinched some of it into another small envelope then closed his shoulder satchel, his hand brushing against the brass ear trumpet he carried and used when inspecting bodies. Endersby had been pleased to see the young surgeon use a similar instrument, proud that his own method was like that of an Edinburgh-trained professional.

  Downstairs, Endersby spoke quietly to Sergeant Caldwell. “Go round the theatres this morning, before the inquest.”

  “Whatever for, sir?” Caldwell spoke peevishly.

  “Sometimes, Sergeant, you are too quick.”

  “Pardon, sir. I see no…”

  “Play the rube,” Endersby said, cutting Caldwell off. “Play the gull. I suggest you try the Surrey side theatres first. The Coburg, Aston’s Palladium, you know them. I have not heard of this Cake fellow. Find out who he was, what he did, who he knew. Do not mention what has happened.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  Caldwell pulled down his frayed hat and reluctantly left by the front area stairs. Endersby next instructed the two constables. One walked outside to the front railing on Doughty Street. The constable in the white gloves offered to guard the backyard gate and also to go later to alert the surgeon of the inquest. Endersby then stood by himself in the muddied hall near the kitchen. He showed neither fatigue nor impatience, neither bewilderment nor anger. He reached into his pocket and to his astonishment discovered his candy tin empty. All the chestnuts, every one Harriet had given him, he had eaten. He burned with shame for the instant: he must have been chewing the wretched sweets without consideration as the surgeon examined the corpse. “None of these any more,” he cautioned himself, snapping the tin shut.

  Once again he climbed the staircase to the first floor, a candle held aloft. He moved to the front door entrance leading to Doughty Street. He stepped around the mud-prints and stopped. The door had a turn knob. “But no lock or latch,” Endersby muttered. “Why did this man not lock up his house?” He moved back down the hallway and decided to look into the room next to the parlour. In passing, he glanced briefly again at Samuel Cake, lifeless as dust on the floor. The second room had a bare window. A large dining table of polished mahogany appeared in the flutter of candlelight, taking on form like a spirit-figure in a vampire play. The table had been marred by some kind of blunt instrument. A cabinet behind it leaned forward; broken glass from its upper shelf doors lay like shimmering snow on every nearby surface. The shelves were empty of crockery and silverware. “If, indeed, there were any for thieves to take.” This whole house seems uninhabited, Endersby thought. His eyes continued to scan the floor and walls. The heavy bootprints of mud streaked the parquet, but in this room there was no colour of reddish earth.

  Endersby did not move for a second, though now he had situated himself at the staircase leading to the ground floor kitchen. It was his habit to ponder a crime scene, to imagine it before the crime had taken place, piecing together what he surmised was its original state, then matching that image to what his eyes presented to him in the present moment. This was one of his by-ways, one of the paths he liked to wander to gather a first impression. After thinking for a time, he took the steps to the ground floor. He went slowly as he descended, the gout beginning to pang him already. He moved to the backyard door, opened it and went into the shallow sunken court. There was the constable in the white gloves pacing and beating his hands to keep warm. Endersby climbed the four stairs to the brickyard, a squalid space surrounded by a low brick wall. Looking at the backyard gate, he kept thinking that perhaps this may have been a way in or out for the villains. What forced him forward was an itch he always felt when he figured a clue would soon turn up. His eyes started searching the low brick wall.

  He paused, then smiled to himself. “Ah, there you are,” he whispered. Owen Endersby opened his satchel and slipped out an envelope.

  A single glove lay on its side. Its palm of canvas coarsely sewn to a yellow leather backing. The fingers were slightly shredded; blood spots, on closer inspection, speckled the thumb and two of the forefingers. “So, you rogues,” Endersby said, his bulky frame all sweaty from his exertions. “Here is a part of one of you, blood and all.”

  Endersby raised the glove and folded it into the envelope. He adjusted his hat and his canvas coat. He looked up at the sky. “Well, this is the start of things. Now, Mr. Cake, we shall endeavour to find out a thing or two about your sad departure from this foggy world.”

  * * *

  By the time Endersby walked back down the hall on the first floor and opened the front door of Number 46 Doughty Street, the news of Samuel Cake’s body had reached the neighborhood. Milling children gawked at the windows. Servants and masters were asking questions of the constable standing guard. Inspector Endersby interrupted them. “Good neighbours, please go about your business. This young policeman is here to provide some security to Mr. Cake’s house. Do not be alarmed. My cohorts with the detective force are now in pursuit of the villains.” The crowd stepped back. Endersby heard grumbling and the clearing of throats, but soon the street returned to its placid state: doors were closed, servants cleaned windows and washed down steps, carriages pulled up with packages, a postman began his duties distributing the first of London’s five daily mail deliveries—dinner invitations, calling cards, solicitors’ letters, love notes, relatives’ requests for money—the whole range of human communication slipping through the brass mail slots of the doors on Doughty Street. Endersby beheld the spectacle an
d pondered how the world was always ready to return to harmony and order.

  “I shall go to the coroner,” he told the young constable on guard. “To The Oak and Crown, in Guildford Street.” He then reminded the young policeman he would return later on for a final inspection of the crime site. “So, please keep all in good stead,” Endersby said, pulling on his gloves and starting off down the street.

  Endersby began to stroll along Doughty southward to the corner at Guildford. At exactly two o‘clock in the afternoon, the coroner would make his entrance into the smoky, sawdust-smelling confines of The Oak and Crown.

  * * *

  When the clock struck the appointed hour, Mr. Thaddeus Arne, his beadle’s chain about his neck, preceded the coroner and led him into the tavern. As a man of sixty, the coroner impressed the tavern’s guests with his lively step, his head of white hair, and his hawk’s beak nose. He and the beadle passed into the narrow room at the back of The Oak and Crown.

  The coroner placed himself at a long greasy table and around him herded a group of serious-faced gentlemen holding their summonses in their hands. The coroner instructed Mr. Arne to name the jurymen he had found, one after the other, and to call each to be sworn in. Penny-a-line journalists from the crime rags, as well as the beadle’s collected witnesses, were then allowed to enter. Soon after a crush of spectators crowded the low-ceilinged room, all of them wearing what Endersby called their “roast-beef Sunday clothes.”

  The coroner then stood. “Gentlemen.”

  Silence fell.

  “Gentlemen, you are worthy men all, and have been summoned under law to inquire into the death of Mr. Samuel Cake. Your verdict shall be given, but only after you have been afforded evidence, and testimony from witnesses as honest and reliable in their cause as you are in yours.”

  The jury spread itself over a group of chairs, benches, and perches by the hearth. Endersby and Caldwell stationed themselves beside the penny-a-liners with their lead-tipped pencils poised to scribble down details of the proceedings.

  “Call Mr. Ratcliff.”

  The neighbour, Mr. Ratcliff, dressed now in proper frock coat and trousers, approached the table.

  “Sir, you live beside Mr. Cake and reported the noises in the night. You also notified the constables and night-sergeant at the Gray’s Inn station?”

  “Yes, sir. I did indeed.” Mr. Ratcliff spoke in a shaking voice. Endersby nodded to Caldwell when the bent man came to the point in his story where he stood at his front window.

  “I saw the front door of Mr. Cake’s house open. The gaslight from the street was sufficient to show three men rush out and run up to the north end of the road. They wore caps was all I could tell.”

  “Three men? At what time do you reckon this occurred?”

  “Late, sir. Quite past two o’clock in the morning.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Ratcliff.”

  “And then…”

  “Then?” queried the coroner. Endersby nodded to Caldwell.

  “I took a glass of wine in my study. At the back of my house. I was attempting to calm myself, you see, from being awakened by such violent noise-making.”

  “I see,” nodded the coroner.

  “While in my back study, I saw a fourth, a lone man.”

  “A fourth man? Where?”

  “Leaving the back entrance of Mr. Cake’s house. I am sure of it. He was tall and wore a cloak and at first I thought it was Cake himself. I presumed such, and made no further note of the matter until the constable arrived to announce there was found a body in the very house next to mine.”

  “And what of this walking stick, sir?” asked the coroner, pointing to the stick’s ivory head which had been partly covered by a cloth.

  “Good heavens, your honour. That is surely not blood?”

  The spectators let out a muffled chorus of “ahs.”

  “Answer the question, Mr. Ratcliff.”

  “It belonged to Mr. Cake, sir. He carried it on every occasion that I saw him.”

  Sergeant Caldwell was then brought forward. Sergeant Caldwell was sworn. “Now, Sergeant,” instructed the coroner. “Tell us about Mr. Samuel Cake.”

  Caldwell stood at attention. “In summary, sir,” said Caldwell, to both coroner and jury, “Mr. Cake had means. His stage manager informed me Mr. Cake rented warehouses. He used the profit to hire his players and musicians for the Coburg Theatre, Waterloo Street. Seems Mr. Cake was the manager, and he also wrote many of the pieces presented to the public. I asked after the stage-door keeper about Mr. Cake’s whereabouts last evening. He replied that his employer had taken his usual supper at the theatre, with his many assistants. He had then dressed for the evening in his dressing room where he kept clothes for all occasions. What his business was for the evening, the stage-door keeper did not divulge, mainly because he did not know. Mr. Cake, I learned, was a bachelor of twenty-nine years and had few acquaintances. One young mistress I encountered in the wardrobe department was fearful for him as she wondered what had happened to him since he had not returned for his usual breakfast. The matron in charge spoke highly of him but was much inclined to keep silent. On instruction from my superior, I did not reveal the true purpose to my questions.”

  “Oh, mercy, mercy,” cried the next witness, a Doughty Street heiress, a nervous woman of about forty in a rich blue coat and velvet bonnet.

  “Take care listening to her, Caldwell,” instructed Endersby.

  “That Mr. Cake, he was a suspicious gentleman. How did he live without servants? Never did I see a one. Never were any deliveries of any kind. Mind, he had a full purse. Never came once to Sunday service. I did not notice much else, really. To be truthful. Then, of course, there were the frequenters. My husband—he’s gone to Manchester—my husband labelled them that. These frequenters came and went during the early afternoons. Always came in proper hansoms, always properly dressed. A veiled woman in a bonnet and two young men in top hats. Most respectable, as I could tell. The woman’s face was hard to make out. There was also a tall man in a MacIntosh with a wool cap, dressed like he was a costerman from the Covent Garden market. I found that intriguing. Yet I could tell from his trousers and boots he had a purse. He once came, I swear, and was wearing a red beard. I am sure he was the same gentleman. His beard was most certainly red and bushy. Must have shaved it off perchance. Though I reckon from his height he was no Irishman, he being so tall.”

  The jury took a break. The clock struck four, and Inspector Owen Endersby then approached the table.

  “It was found, sir, by the back wall of Mr. Cake’s house.” Inspector Endersby held up the bloodied glove. “There are marks on it. Blood and soot.” The jury and spectators peered at the object.

  The coroner concurred. “Much violence to the establishment, much breakage.” The penny-a-liners scribbled, the spectators once again leaned forward.

  “Is there any other witness, Mr. Arne?” the coroner demanded. The beadle shook his head in an official manner. “The porter of the street gate was indisposed, sir. His wife claimed he was out of town on Friday night at his mother’s funeral. The street gate was locked at eight o’clock, as usual. The wife had gone to bed early and claimed to have seen nothing—hence I did not ask her to appear before you today.”

  “Call the surgeon, then, beadle.”

  Mr. Sloan stood up. He described his findings on the state of the body. He surmised the number of times Mr. Cake’s head had been struck—sufficient enough to cause death. Mr. Sloan sat down.

  “Very good, sir,” the coroner stated. The jury members rose from their places. All of them clustered around the table. The scribblers continued to write, and Endersby nodded to Caldwell. When the jury of men parted, the coroner stood alone at the centre of the room.

  “Gentlemen,” he began. “Our verdict, accordingly, is murder. No doubt of it. Our witnesses spoke of men coming and going. Mr. Sloane described to you the state of the beaten body. No doubt of what the crime is. But we must now discover for what rea
sons and by whom it was committed. You are all discharged.” The jury bowed.

  “Mr. Endersby?” The inspector faced the coroner. “I grant you permission, Inspector, to guard all items connected to the murder and to hold them for the magistrate.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “There is no doubt, Inspector, your discoveries may lead to something most important, and I therefore implore you to find out as much as you can, to find out, for instance, if the owner of this glove may have been guilty of killing Mr. Cake. Please be advised that all items, papers, objects which you deem important must be carried to the magistrate.”

  Endersby bowed his head to the coroner and watched the older man retreat into the street, surrounded by the men once commandeered to be his jury.

  “What time are we, Caldwell?” Endersby asked.

  “Half past four o’clock, sir.”

  “Come with me, will you, to Number 46. I want to explore the second and third floors while the light is still sufficient.”

  As the two men made their way back to No. 46 Doughty Street, Endersby thought out loud: “And so Mr. Ratcliff, the bookish neighbour, witnessed three men in caps rush out of Mr. Cake’s front door and head up to the north end of Doughty Street. You must speak again to the gate porter or his wife, Caldwell.”

  “I took the liberty earlier today to do just that, sir.”

  “Well done, Caldwell,” said Endersby. At times, his subordinate could impress with his initiative.