Trumpets Sound No More

by Jon Redfern

  Solange subsequently carried the tureen to the table. She was jumpy, her features cramped by her effort. Endersby felt glad knowing she’d been hired to work only in the evenings. The inspector raised his spoon in anticipation. A great slop of white liquid filled with fins and shiny membrane fell from the serving ladle into his bowl.

  “Fish soup, à la française,” chimed Harriet. “Go on, Owen. I tried a bowl in the kitchen. It is delicious.”

  Endersby proved to be a forbearing man. He ate the soup, then a duck pressed flat into a pancake, then a pot of boiled greens covered with a yellow sauce. He wiped his mouth, shook the new cook’s hand, bussed his Harriet and informed her of his appointments for the evening; then, after a short visit to his wardrobe, he descended the stairs to Cursitor Street, wondering whether his food would sit well on the journey to the Coburg Theatre.

  The streets across the river were frantic with crowds. Even on a Monday evening, the theatre attracted workers and weary clerks of the city to seek out some entertainment after their long hours of labour. Horses and carts clogged Waterloo Road. A red banner across the front of the Coburg announced the upcoming Christmas extravaganza. Endersby, in soiled cloak, broad hat and spectacles, bravely pushed past young men and women in clothes pungent from the market. He found the stage manager, who let him into the back foyer leading to the gallery stairs. “Beg pardon, sir. I hardly recognized you.”

  “That is a good thing, then,” replied the inspector.

  Endersby made the effort to remain as un-policeman-like as possible, given this rambunctious lot of mechanics, costermongers, clerks, lower hall servants and shopkeepers. His mind was preoccupied with the need to find out more about Mr. Cake. Why had Lord Harwood accepted this particular man when there were other managers—at the Lyceum, the Adelphi, the Olympic, to name only three—who had more established reputations? Surely it was not because Cake was handy with coin? That he knew how to balance a book? A gift, perhaps, for attracting the public—such a thing would appeal to Harwood, even if it were only to amuse him as his coffers filled.

  A zig-zag staircase led to the gallery, the highest set of seats in the Coburg, a mass of benches crammed under the slope of the theatre’s roof. Bodies crowded the narrow confines of the staircase. “Only threepenny a head,” shouted the ticket seller. “Hold ’em up, get ’em ready.” An echo filled the stairwell as arms reached out to pay a man stuffed into a little wicket by the upper turn leading to the gallery landing. A hat tumbled down over the heads of the mass. Owen could hardly turn to see it caught by a chap with a scruffy beard. “All right there, Charlie, I’ve got it.” As he was shoved further up toward the gallery’s entrance, Endersby noted the other motley spectators—lads from eleven to twenty mostly, a few black-faced chimney sweeps and smut-covered dustmen still in their overalls. Endersby guessed, too, at the stranger faces about him. At what he surmised were sellers of pastry, from the flour on their cuffs, the fried-fish hawker sporting his greasy front with blots of scales still hanging from his lapels. But who else, he wondered? The sellers of dogs, the fuzee merchants, the beetle wafer peddlars, the occasional warmly-dressed crossing sweeper? Who else indeed.

  He soon found a place on one of the long wooden benches of the gallery. The warmth and smell of the Coburg at first made him woozy—might he bring up his à la française dinner in such a fetid atmosphere? Ham-sandwich men vied with sellers of porter, who walked back and forth by the lower railing. The place was nothing more than a heap of moving heads. Below, the proscenium opening had a bright canvas roll. When the drums beat out a tattoo, the gallery and the pit yelled in delight.

  The canvas rolled up, and the stage shimmered with blue light. A huge plaster head rose through the centre trap door, and as it began to sing, there descended from the flies a host of young maidens sitting in armchairs—their flight as mechanically wondrous as if the gods themselves were floating to earth. The play was filled with fretting music, sudden scene changes, more flying machines, traps and effects of fire. A real waterfall like a cascade of silver, burst from a rock face concocted of beaten tin. “Lookit, lookit,” were the words Endersby heard skimming through the vast sloping faces of the gallery. Applause was thunderous when the ghost of Jack Wilson, played by Mr. Percy Buckstone, floated up and through a ship made of luminous gauze. For a finale, the maidens rose in their chairs singing the praises of Jack the Tar, and in a second, canvas trees turned into clouds as paper birds fluttered into a painted sunset.

  Owen Endersby let his hands pound out applause. What chaos of joy reigned in the Coburg. So, it was brilliant novelty which Cake proclaimed to his public. When the stage manager stepped before the curtain to ask permission for a repetition, the response was tumultuous “Bring it on again,” shouted the laughing voices. The stage manager raised his hand as if he were the Queen herself and silence fell. “Ladies and gentlemen, I beg your indulgence to remember our sadly departed manager, Mr. Cake.” A solemn show of pity moved Endersby. “He was a jolly good man,” shouted a lad from the pit.

  After the performance, the stage manager led Endersby down a flight of steps and across a courtyard behind the theatre. There was a small workshop, its ceiling hung with levers, hooks and wire forms. A grease-slicked metal table ran the length of the room. Gregorius Barnwell wore a flattened cap. He was short, broad, covered in spots of oil, with thick eyebrows springing from his forehead.

  “I cannot now. Please leave me be.”

  “I am sorry to hear of your loss, Mr. Barnwell,” Endersby said.

  “You are the police detective, are you? Fine job you’ve done. My brother Samuel killed right under your eyes.”

  “I much admired your work tonight, Mr. Barnwell.” Endersby pushed on, knowing he must strike quickly in spite of resistance.

  “Did you, sir? Did you?”

  “Most marvellous visions, worthy of a great theatre.”

  “Bosh, sir. Worthy of a tinker only.” Barnwell lifted a thin piece of metal from the forge. “My brother was an honourable man, sir. Not deserving his fate.”

  “Tell me, Mr. Barnwell, what scoundrel took such a disliking to him?”

  “Some vicious fool.” Barnwell took a hammer and banged at the glowing end of the metal.

  “From what I have discovered in meeting his acquaintances—his professional colleagues—your Samuel Cake was highly respected.”

  “Hardly, sir, if one of them beat his bloody brains in.” Gregorious Barnwell put down his hammer. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his nose. “That’s enough, I can say no more.”

  Endersby walked up to Barnwell and put his arm on his shoulder. It was one of Endersby’s ways with people, a way he had of giving comfort that was unexpected from a policeman. Barnwell jumped back. “I blame your kind, sir. Unhand me. These are cruel streets where a man like my Samuel can be beaten to death like a horse.”

  “Mr. Barnwell, I want to find the brute that killed your brother. I need to find him soon. Vindication is what we are both after, is it not?”

  Barnwell replaced his handkerchief. He dragged a chair to the table and sat down.

  “I have heard your brother purchased his fine house in Doughty Street not six months ago.”

  “Yes.”

  Endersby walked around the metal table. “I much admired it.”

  “How fortunate for you, sir,” replied Barnwell. “I have never seen it.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Never had an invite, you see. Nor the inclination.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “Samuel bought the place to show off his profits. Like a prize pony. A bauble, he called it. He didn’t live there but here in the theatre.”

  “Do you have other kin, sir? Others in your family who might have seen it—or wanted it?”

  Barnwell sneered. He took a rag and wiped sweat from his forehead. “No kin, sir. Both of us born on the wrong side of the davenport, if you grasp my meaning. Same mam, different studs.” Barnwell smirked, pinched his nose, then he
stood up and waved the rag. “Please, it is late. I will not talk about this further.”

  Endersby hit the table with his fist. This gesture was also one of his tricks: make a noise, distract the man being questioned. “Your Samuel’s murderer is enjoying a pint of porter right now, Mr. Barnwell. He may be spending some of your brother’s hard-earned coin. Can you picture him in a public house, puffing out his chest?”

  Barnwell reddened. “Enough,” he shouted. “Leave me be.”

  “I cannot, sir. I cannot let a guilty man run free when a body is barely cold.”

  “You are as guilty as the scoundrel himself.”

  “Mr. Barnwell, I am an honest-speaking man. If we continue to dither, Samuel’s killer will never see the doors of Newgate prison. I need to know things that can lead me to this devil.”

  “Fine words, Mr. Detective. But what I know is of no value.”

  “Do you know of Rosa Grisi and her brothers?”

  “Fools all three. More foolish my Samuel for courting the villainous woman. More a man than a woman, I venture, from her coarse ways. Those brothers are not worth the dung they shovel at that circus.”

  “Did you ever meet them?”

  “No, sir. I thank my Saviour for that. Samuel complained loudly enough so that I needn’t see them.”

  “It is rumoured she stabbed a man once. In her native country.”

  “I am not surprised. Perhaps it was she, in fact, who killed my brother.”

  “For what reason, do you imagine?”

  “Imagine? For money. For sport.”

  “And who would put the Grisi family up to such a scheme?”

  “You think there is one other?”

  “I do not know, Mr. Barnwell. But I have a name for you.”

  “A name?”

  “Henry Robertson Dupré.” Endersby had been considering the idea the moment he entered Barnwell’s quarters: What if Dupré had hired the Grisi brothers and sister to perform a revenge plot—a house smashing, a head beating. “Is it possible that Dupré was jealous of your brother’s good fortune? That he might have paid the Grisis to attack your brother’s house as a way of threatening him for usurping his position at Old Drury?”

  “I would not put any of this past Mr. Dupré. He was a rival of Samuel’s and despised him.”

  Gregorius Barnwell spat out these last words in a fury of hatred.

  “On Friday last, did you see your brother at all during the day?”

  “We had a cup of tea together in the morning. Later, in the afternoon, I went with him over Waterloo Bridge and took a late drink with him at a tavern on the way to Old Drury.”

  “Did your brother mention he was meeting anyone at that particular hour?”

  “My brother looked after his own affairs, sir. But yes, since he was now to be manager at Old Drury, courtesy of Lord Harwood, who owns the building. I thought he was meeting the Lord. Instead we both met with an actor, a tall pale man I am not familiar with—a tragic actor at Old Drury—and the two had a set-to in the tavern.”

  “Your brother and the actor fought?”

  “With words only, sir. About a promissory note or two. I was not listening closely. The actor then waxed angry at Samuel. The tavern laughed at his temper, and my brother had the man thrown into the street.”

  “You do not remember this tall actor’s name.”

  “No inspector, I was staring into my grog. Actors mean little to me.”

  “Your brother, Samuel, was not married, was he, Mr. Barnwell?”

  “No,” came the sullen answer.

  “He had many young women in his life, did he not?”

  “I do not know. I care not.”

  “He was in love with Miss Grisi, though, was he not?”

  “I suppose. And with Miss Priscilla Root.”

  “The actress?”

  “A few years back. Miss Root never forgave him for it.”

  “Matron tells me he was fond of the young women who worked for him.”

  “Kind to them, sir, and he never took advantage.”

  “Young Esther was her name. She was one, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes. And the little coster girl. A sweet bud. Little Betty.”

  “A coster girl?”

  “She was eager to be in the theatre. Samuel hired her to play in Jack Wilson, one of the girls who floats up in the chairs in the prologue. But she fell out of the contraption one day. By accident. He lost his temper with her, and she ran away. Little Betty Loxton. She had a cruel brother, who came calling to take Samuel to task. John was his name. A big man.”

  Endersby glanced at his pocket watch. It was near eleven o’clock. Sergeant Caldwell was on alert at Aston’s and was to follow the Grisi brothers and meet Miss Rosa Grisi. Endersby decided to venture one last question.

  “You and Samuel got along well, did you not?”

  Barnwell’s face darkened. “I loved him, Mr. Detective.”

  “Did you envy him, too?”

  “What do you mean, you scoundrel?”

  “He had a fine house. He was handsome. Young women trailed after him. Are you married by chance, Mr. Barnwell?” Endersby felt a tinge of panic. He was daring to push this man who could, in a trice, smash his head in anger with one of his metal pokers.

  “I am not, sir. I was never jealous of Samuel, if that is what you are after.”

  “But you say you never had the inclination to see his house. Surely, of all people, he would have wanted you to do so.”

  “No, sir. He did not. He was ashamed of my appearance.”

  “Why?” Endersby sharpened his attention.

  “He wanted the place to be a dream house. Only gentry allowed. He said I would not like it there, it being so big and empty. He said I would laugh at it, and I would look like a servant in it. Do not embarrass yourself, brother, he said. You will think me more the fool.”

  “Curious,” remarked Endersby.

  “He gave me this workplace, this forge to let me make my machines. He said that was the only valuable thing he really owned in his life.”

  Endersby thought about these last words. He thrust his hands into his pockets. The air was growing cold in the room as the fire died down. “Good night, sir,” he then said. “Can you tell me where I might find the young coster girl?”

  “She is an innocent in this matter.”

  “In Covent Garden, The New Cut?”

  “Near the Garden, sir. By Longacre, I believe.”

  “I bid you good night.”

  Endersby thanked the stage manager, who was waiting in the courtyard, and walked out toward the street. By the time he reached Aston’s, a light fog had settled.

  “Good evening,” he said to the stage-door keeper at the entrance.

  “No more half-price,” came the quick answer. The man was the same one Endersby had questioned earlier in the day. He was sleepy looking and did not recognize him. Endersby walked around the outside of the theatre hoping to find Caldwell, the streets echoing with late walkers and horses being led across cobble stones.

  “Caldwell?” he shouted. Endersby rattled the stage door. He leaned his ear to the stable’s gate, but there were no sounds of men working. He then moved on, walking to the entrance to Waterloo Bridge, where he spent a few harried moments trying to find a hansom cab. When he finally hailed one, the driver was caustic and rude. Endersby sat back in the swaying coach and ran over the details he had gathered from Gregorius Barnwell. He tried to forego mixing supposition with fact. He harnessed his desire to dramatize the event of the murder. In fact, he forced his thoughts not to consider Dupré as the villain of his piece, as a cruel Nemesis, exacting punishment on the innocent Cake. Yet the idea kept rearing up, festooned with those stupendous images from Barnwell’s machine play which he had witnessed but an hour before. Patience, he cautioned himself. Do not let this habit mar your judgement.

  * * *

  Endersby stepped down at Number 6 Cursitor Street at the precise moment his pocket watch showed b
oth tiny hands at twelve. Harriet was asleep in her bed, and the smell of fish soup lingered. He went to his table by the window and examined the evidence he had amassed thus far. The mud samples, the glove, the promissory note from P. Summers were all he’d gathered. The beadle would deliver Cake’s clothes tomorrow. But what else did he have? He needed hard evidence and a confession if he wanted a conviction. Ignorance or careless memory had served him meagre fare for drawing conclusions. Were the Grisi family his only possible suspects? He had yet to meet Dupré, and rumour had a way of warping the truth. And what about the coster girl and her threatening brother? And the relations with Miss Root? Let alone the figure from the opera, the woman named Elisabetta Mazzini. She bore consideration without doubt. Someone in this teeming city had done the heinous act.

  He gazed at the clock again. The day was out, and Superintendent Borne had not been given what he wanted.

  Owen took a bath. He carried a glass of Spanish port into his room and sat down before the wooden puzzle on the table. Trees and water were the only full pictures he had been able to fit together with certainty. The pieces were well designed to mislead even a practiced hand. He picked up an odd-shaped section, a triangular mass. Was it a gun barrel or a bent ankle? How many human figures were in this landscape-to-be? Owen worked for an hour until he found his eyes squinting, his gouty foot beginning to pang even more dramatically. He tiptoed into Harriet’s room, placing his candle on the table next to the bed. The room remained dark except for the pool of light beside the half-drawn bed curtains. Harriet lay in her cap. The pillow cradled her calm face.

  Owen crawled close to her, careful not to ruffle the bedcovers, cautious in his tenderness not to wake her. Lying down beside her, he felt much more at ease. He recalled the first time he’d met his beloved Harriet. The set of rooms was on the second floor of a house in Hart Lane. Endersby’s youthful self, with his curly brown hair, had seen before him in the party crowd the face of the girl he’d spotted two nights before at Old Drury. “Her father runs a small printing press near the City,” said the uncle. Harriet Beaken came toward Endersby. She curtsied and asked him if he’d care to place his name on her dance card. “Rather,” he replied, “will you allow me to jump the queue and dance with you now? See, the fiddler has come, and the lines are forming.”