by Jon Redfern
The tavern across Vinegar Yard was not crowded. Plates and jugs were carried to and fro, and the smoke from pipes floated up to the massive rings of candles over the tables. Endersby took a moment to unwrap his coat, shake his hat and peel off his gloves, looking all the while at Sergeant Stott standing at attention in front of him with a tired look on his face. Beside the sergeant was a handsome younger man. He had oily hair and wore a yellow cravat.
“Gentlemen, please,” said Endersby. He ordered a round of brandy and hot water.
“This is Josef, nephew of Eleazar the Lender, on the Strand.”
“My pleasure,” Josef said. He placed on the table a raft of folded papers. Each bore the signature of “P. Summers”, and each recorded a sum lent on promise of repayment with interest. “Mrs Summers, alias Miss Priscilla Root, frequently comes to us, to my uncle. We know she owes other lenders as well. Of course, she can pay, and she does pay. But it takes time.”
“Have you seen her recently?”
“Oh yes, yes, in Soho, at the club at Balham’s, which she frequents with her sisters. I went to inform her that my Uncle Eleazar would no longer be angry with her if she would agree to pay him more regularly with extra small sums. Miss Root was generous, oh, yes and grateful.”
“Had she been tardy?”
“Yes. I had come to the theatre Sunday last to collect. She sent out to me her little call boy, oh, certainly a good boy, and the money was right. I am back-and-forth between our clients and my Uncle Eleazar. It is our business, you see.”
“Was she then agreeable?”
“She was most agreeable after my Uncle Eleazar had agreed to arrange these weekly payments, and they include the one sovereign she already pays once a week.” Young Josef was imposing, clear-headed and straightforward. He had a quiet, mysterious air about him, however, that to an innocent eye might seem frightening. {ED: We have moved the section below forward. It used to come after Stott’s story, but we find it unlikely that they would allow Josef to be there while they exchanged case information}
Josef rose to leave and gathered his papers.
“Did you, Josef, ever meet Mr. Samuel Cake?”
“I knew of him. I had taken my cousin to his theatre. But I never made his acquaintance.”
“And your uncle?”
“My Uncle Eleazar knows all of London. You best ask him. He did not lend money, however, to those with a full purse.”
“Did you or your uncle ever lend money to a man called Giulio Grisi?”
“Only to his younger brother, Franco. Giulio is too proud for money lenders.”
“Do you happen to know where he is at this moment?”
“In London.”
“In hiding?”
“Is he? I have not heard.”
“If you do, if you meet Franco within the next day or night, do not hesitate to send word to me.”
“He has committed a crime?”
“He has beaten a policeman.”
“What a foolish thing to do,” said Josef. He shook the inspector’s hand and left, not having taken a drop of his brandy.
Sergeant Stott then spoke up; he described his journeys into Gray’s Inn and his particular discoveries. “Superintendent Rance beckoned me into his office. I did not know how to acquit myself, except to come right out with my request. I asked about thieving schools and about gangs. As Mr. Rance was half amused by my queries, he continued to listen, and then told me blankly that he knew of none. That the Cake matter was singular, in his opinion. That theft was not rife in the area, despite its respectability, no doubt due to the efficiency of his policemen. I then enquired as to the procedures on Friday last, the night of Mr. Cake’s murder. Rance complained that the station was awakened at a very late hour. The admittance sergeant showed me the records. Mr. Merron, the servant sent by Cake’s neighbor, arrived at the station at fifteen minutes before three and had to summon a constable who was sleeping in the back chamber. According to the record, the constable in question reported that he first viewed the body of Mr. Cake at the premises of 46 Doughty Street one half hour later.
“I then ventured to Doughty Street. Slipping from door to door, I gathered scant information and only one offer of a cup of tea to chase away the dampness. Until I came to Mr. Cake’s neighbour. His old servant, the one who had fetched the constables on that fatal Friday, was most forthcoming, chattering like an old monkey. I was reminded of such by his broad sideburns as he went on. As it was raining hard, and the kitchen door was unprotected, he waved me in. I sat through his entire description of the events, from his being wakened by his master, from his hearing the noises in Cake’s house at such a late hour—loud enough for a man partially deaf—it being past two o’clock, to his putting on of boots to run to the station. He made a point I had him repeat. On his way back with the constables he took a shorter route, down an alley, and he saw through a break in the houses the dark outline of a coster-man’s cart. Most odd, he claimed, most unlike costers to lurk on the streets at that hour. Few of them come this far from Covent Garden. A figure sat holding the reins. The figure was smoking, wore a cloth on the head, wore what seemed to be a skirt, seemed most woman-like. And that was all.”
“Enough, and well said, sergeant.”
Stott then asked if they could find a private room upstairs. Endersby called over the barkeep and made his query. He and Stott were summarily led past the bar itself, through a curiously wide hall, and into a small room with a cold hearth.
“I shall send the boy to make a fire,” said the barkeep.
“Do not bother, my good man,” replied Endersby. “We shall return to the main room presently for our pie.”
From a hefty sack, Stott drew out a long black woolen cloak. “At last,” said Endersby. The cloak collar was of silk. Its hem and side pockets were still spotted with Cake’s blood. Stott spread the cloak over a set of chairs Endersby had clustered. Both men rubbed their hands and blew on them from the cold. The light was dim. Stott searched for a candle and was forced to run to the barkeep to find one. In the meantime, Endersby walked around the cloak, lifting its weight and peering into its underside. An eerie feeling it was to touch the material, as if Cake were still a part of it, as if his body might suddenly materialize from it, popping out at Endersby like a demon in a stage melodrama.
When Stott returned with the shuddering light, the cloak took on vibrant new life. Its lining was of scarlet, and it shone as if polished with chamois. Endersby brushed his fingertips over its surface. He began to pat it. He lifted it to his face and pressed its corners. Running it through his hands, he found along one side a row of very small buttons, every one square and sewn over with a sheath of the scarlet cloth. He unbuttoned all of them patiently, with Stott holding the cloak apart. The entire cloak then widened to twice its width. It was as if Endersby had uttered “Open Sesame”, and the cave of the Forty Thieves appeared before his amazed eyes.
“Curious, Stott. It is a bank.”
In small folds, there were hundreds of pound notes. The folds were clasped by eyes and cloth hooks. It took Endersby and Stott ten minutes to pull from the folds over two thousand pound sterling.
“Mr. Cake’s balances,” marveled Endersby. “He walked with his own money box around his shoulders. Pray, what if by chance he’d left it in a cab?”
“Not likely, Inspector. Do you think?”
Endersby hands flew into other interior pockets. Here was a notebook hand-sewn of flattened sheets. Names appeared in columns. There was Mr. Buckstone still owing. There, too, Miss Root as “P. Summers”. And Mr. Weston with his sixty pounds. “It hardly matters now,” quoted Endersby.
“I beg your pardon, Inspector.”
“Those words were uttered by Mr. Weston about Cake’s business of loans and notes.”
The buttons were re-buttoned and the cloak folded shut.
“Ah,” cried Endersby. “How clever.”
“What, sir?” Stott had taken to stamping his feet to chase the damp a
ir away.
“Hence the shy seamstress. Esther by name. The ‘lovey-dovey’ girl. Another quote, I am afraid, sergeant. A worker for Mr. Cake, a seamstress. I surmise this is her excellent handiwork.”
A pocket inside one of the outside pockets was yet another discovery. “What a trove,” exclaimed Endersby. “Ah, look at this.”
The paper was soiled but readable. One signature was large: William Weston. The sum, however, puzzled Endersby. “Look, Stott. Read out the number to me. What is the amount of this promissory note?”
“Thirty pounds, sir. In number, and written out in full. And Cake, the lender. Weston is debtor. Both have signatures.”
“Hand it to me.”
Endersby took the note. “But the actor told me he owed sixty pounds, as the ledger recorded.”
Was this a separate loan? A loan in two parts? Or was this note a balance of some kind or other?
“Read the date out to me, Stott, if there be one. On the note.”
“Fourteenth October, of this year.”
“Over two months.”
“Yes, Inspector.”
Endersby mumbled thirty pounds again and placed the note in his satchel.
“Stott, take the cloak back to Scotland Yard. Take the money in your sack and go as quickly as you can and lock it up. We have not been spied on here, so you will be safe. Once you have done that duty, return here, take your pie and stout and sit with me, for we have more things to do this night, and some of them may not be very pleasant.”
* * *
Henry Robertson Dupré awoke at his desk in the attic of Old Drury, the candle gone out. His bizarre, narrow office felt colder than an iceberg, at least as Henry imagined an iceberg being cold. He read his watch. Nearly half past nine o’clock. He smiled to himself and sat up. He gathered the pages he had written and placed them in a corner of the desk. He trimmed and lit the candle before shoving back his chair. With all this movement, he was silent and cautious, the night outside full of shouts. He took from the drawer a short iron staff and pried up two of the broad floorboards, which helped make up the narrow terrain of his office. Had his architect not built him a new floor, Henry’s secret cache would have been hidden in a cupboard or behind a cloth. But it was the floor, and how well it yielded the folded cloak. This evening, Henry decided the cloak was enough. Perhaps he would risk a broad rimmed hat. He pulled on his blue waistcoat and frock coat. The candle sputtered, and its flickering jarred his concentration.
“And so, guv’ner,” exclaimed Henry to himself, as if he had just split in two and become Master and Familiar. “So, off we trot.” A not unpleasant swirling overtook him, as if he were mounted on a racing steed and had lost hold of the reins. Ignore the clay bottle, counseled his Familiar self, leave its oil and sheaths. No time, no desire tonight for reaming and ramming. “Ah, no,” he whispered. He smiled again as he looked for a second time at his watch. Then he resumed his dressing. He tied on the great cloak. He tugged down the broad rim of the hat.
On the shy side of half past nine o’clock, Henry Robertson Dupré descended the back stairs of Old Drury. He hurried out, passing though Vinegar Yard into the bustle and shadows of the street. There was a dour expression on his face, as if he had just eaten a cut of lemon, but perhaps this was more a forced look, more to do with his disguise than his temperament. His marching feet led him down Bow Street. Clouds blotted out the stars, and the rain was light. Gaslight softened brick and cobble, giving to Henry’s mind the appearance of a painted canvas streetscape. There was a wild beating in his heart now. Ahead, in the meandering lanes, waited the brothels and nanny-houses of London. The thought made him thirsty, and he made a quick turn, walked briskly up a shallow court and entered a cosy gin shop.
“A moment only,” he chided himself and signaled to the barkeep to bring him a glass.
* * *
“I know it’s you,” said young Crabb to himself, escaping from the shadow of the building, his eyes wide and aching with wonder. “What else can I do but go?”
Dupré was therefore left to his drink in the tavern and Reggie Crabb, spy and professional aid to the Detective Police, ran along the street. A rabbit could go no faster, since the inspector had said be sharp, be my eyes, so now Crabb must be his legs, too. He ran and stumbled and careened around corners. It would be true to say Crabb was frightened. Lordy, he thought, if Mr. Dupré was to find me out. Then it’s the mines, it’s the streets for sure, a crossing sweeper’s broom. Now he saw the tavern door moving toward him, his own legs in a big ache from the pounding of the cobbles. The door grew, then it opened, and the smoke took hold of him. Cor, where was the old fat man? Crabb’s first thought was the inspector had left him to be caught. He pushed from table to table and in a panic tripped and fell. He brushed himself off, grabbed his cap and ran to the barkeep. By the time he shoved his way forward, his eye caught a figure at a table. It was Mr. Endersby lifting his glass of rum and hot water. He was already talking, cheeks flushed with hearth-warmth. I hope he will listen. A rougher, burly man sat across from him, shoveling pie and pastry into his wet mouth.
“Sir,” shouted Crabb, his breath shooting forth.
“Lad, come here. Calm down.”
“He’s run out, sir. Run to a gin house on Broad Lane.”
“Who do you mean, lad? Take a breath.”
“Mr. Dupré, sir. I was your eye. Sharp, sir. And he ran out.”
“Here, sit here. Now look at me. Once again. Start at the beginning.”
“Where, sir? All I know—he took a supper in the Green Room, went upstairs to his attic at half past of seven and shut the door.”
“Dupré did not go home? He took supper in Old Drury.”
“Yes, sir. Lordy, that is but the start.”
“At half of seven, he shut his door,” repeated the inspector.
“I hid—like you said—I hid at the stair-top, under the fly drum. I waited and I waited, and he came out after so long a time. After more time, he went back in and fell to sleep.”
“How did you see that?”
“His door, sir, he left it ajar. I sat and hid—like you said—and when he woke, he lit his candle and then he bent over the boards in the floor and took them up with an iron staff. He pulled up the cloak, sir. The black cloak then a hat, and he put them on.”
Crabb held his hand to his aching throat.
“Stott, hand me your porter. Here, lad, take a slow slip. Easy, now.”
Crabb gulped the rich liquid and coughed. He drew his hand over his mouth.
“Tell me more about the floor, lad.”
“But sir, he is out. He is in Broad Lane. I was alert—like you said—and he will go on.”
“Right you are, lad. Stott, come with me now. You, lad, you go back to your stairwell and wait. Hold up there and do not move. Mr. Dupré may return, and if he does, you somehow come back here. If you cannot find us, tell the barkeep you came in and ask him to tell you the time. Then, go back to your bed. You have done well, my young eyes.”
Crabb pushed the chair back. He listened to the inspector with only half an ear, for he was more interested in going along. “May I not come, sir?” his little voice asked. But the noise of the other men, and the scraping of chairs drowned out his request. The inspector and the burly man threw coins on the table and made for the door in such haste the old man’s limping leg seemed to fly by itself. Lordy, thought Crabb, what is up now? What is the mischief? Crabb’s brain was sick with watching. He wanted to drink a draught, and he wanted to run with the inspector. He sauntered out of the tavern, ambled into Vinegar Yard and stopped to take in the rain-filled air of the city.
At the stage door, he tipped his hat. The theatre was full again tonight. The crowd burst into applause as a trumpet sounded. Crabb climbed the stairs, once his cues were done, and sat once again, alone, under the fly drum.
“Lordy,” he grumbled. Such a strange life. He still had a few moments before his next rounds. “I wonder,” said he to the drum, half
hoping it might answer him back. “I wonder if I will ever see that lovely Betty again.”
* * *
Dupré entered a narrow passage. Stale cold rimed its walls. Nary a sound he made, as if his presence would jar those who appeared before him. Figures in black and grey, feathers and fringe on all of them. And all of them lining the curved staircase which rose into a heady gloom. Their movements spoke of pleasure, secrecy, coin. Of physical delight, thought Henry, of a kind known to Jezebel and the acolytes of Sodom and Gomorrah. Beyond the cramped curve of stair came the noise of laughter and drum roll. For here, and this fact brought a quick grin to Henry’s face, here was his rival house. Here was the great Covent Garden, but not its grand foyer and its saloons. Rather, this was its infamous back stairway full of women of the town. Henry climbed further into the curve, and a legion of black, bobbing bonnets came into view. Regimental formation, he surmised, a woman to a step, shawl pulled tight, bonnet loosened, mouth busy, knees bent. And the clientele—not the pay-box kind, indeed, but the shilling-a-throw gentleman, top hat on, legs astride, buttons undone before the bobbing head, posture as straight as best a man can do after pints of ale, dignity only slightly compromised by a pair of teetering boots on the step slant. There, to Henry’s right, a frail eight-year-old girl peddled paper violets.
“Ha’penny a gather, your worship.”
Henry tossed the waif a penny, snatched the bunch and mounted more steps. “Trot on,” he said under his breath. Where was one pretty enough in this smelly light? “Ah,” he cried, moments later.
Near the top of the staircase, he handed his gather to a young bonnet, her black hair pulled tight into the frame of her rim. “What, hello,” Henry said. The girl’s lips smiled bright red from grease paint and spittle.
“’Allo, squire,” she said, eyes aglance, hands already twisting open Henry’s trouser buttons. She began, slowly, sliding and sliding, the rim of her bonnet brushing against Henry’s groin. On and on, slow, up and down, and it was as if in this moment of lust, Henry was transformed from a man into a frigate, his topsails all trimmed, his body into the wind ploughing through swells. His yardarm was straight; his mast at full height. “Easy,” he cautioned his bonnet. “Easy, there.” He pinched his thumb and forefinger on the girl’s shoulder and slowed her down. “Steady, careful.”