Trumpets Sound No More

by Jon Redfern

  The bonnet did his bidding. Henry raised up his head and breathed. He readjusted his stance. “Go on,” he bade her. The bonnet began again with some vigour. Henry stared at a stain on the wall beyond her head, a hand mark, greasy and small. This was but one distraction which bothered him among many. What joy he had entertained by his disguise, now faded.

  “Damn,” Henry said again and pulled back. His bonnet took hold of his thigh.

  “Come along, squire,” she said, her voice low and hoarse. “We ain’t done as yet.”

  Henry had already started to button his trousers. He proffered her a shilling, tossing it at her face.

  “Aaooh. Christmas come early. I thanks you, squire.” Down the stairs Henry pushed. He shoved his hat from his sweaty brow and finished buttoning himself, keeping his head low as he strove through eager men making their way up the crowded stairs.

  The brutal air of Bow Street awakened him.

  “Ah, Mr. Dupré. A fine supper you’ve taken.”

  “What in damnation are you saying, sir? I beg your pardon.”

  Before him in soiled hat and shabby suede gloves stood the bulky, broad-smiling Inspector Owen Endersby.

  “Relatives from Shropshire, I understand,” queried the inspector. “Six of them. All lined up in a row.”

  “I do not see your jest, Inspector.”

  “Meet my sergeant, Mr. Stott. He will aid me in escorting you home to Woburn Place.”

  The burly man’s hold was already pinching Henry’s arm. “This is outrageous and preposterous, sir. Leave me be.”

  “Mr. Dupré. I need only a few moments of your time. Over the matter, sir, of a pack of lies.”

  “Let me go.”

  But it was no use. The door to a hansom cab was already held open, and with a hard, cruel shove and a clamp on his wrist, Henry found himself beside the gruff but still smiling inspector, whose firm hand held him all the way to Number 12.

  * * *

  “Now then, ladies and gentleman.”

  The kitchen at Number 12 Woburn Place was lit by two candles placed on the long table. Mrs. Croft stood by the dying hearth in her night dress and cap. The cook, the two servant girls and the footman held close their flannel night robes. Henry Robertson Dupré removed his cloak, and on instruction from Inspector Endersby, handed it to Sergeant Stott. For the past five minutes, as the company was hastily assembled, Dupré had said not a single word.

  “We are here in this kitchen to come to terms,” said Endersby. He was tired. His leg panged so much, he stopped for a moment to rub his knee. Mrs. Croft stepped forward and told the footman to fetch the inspector a chair.

  “‘Tis better if I stand, madam. I thank you.”

  Jane, the stuttering servant, girl began to sniffle. Mrs. Croft was about to go to her side when Dupré’s voice resurfaced. “Leave her, Croft,” he said, his tone so vicious, the housekeeper backed off to the hearth. “I want all of you to know…”

  “I beg your pardon, Mr. Dupré,” Inspector Endersby interrupted, his voice raised. “You shall be called upon presently to speak, once I have had my say.”

  “This is not a court of law,” the theatre manager spoke back.

  “No, indeed. But you shall see one of those soon enough. Do not try my patience. I shall be forced to have Mr. Stott come forth.”

  “Beware, Inspector,” countered the irate Dupré. “You are acting like the secret police. Something the heinous French might invent. I remind you we are in England. And I am a free man.”

  “You are a liar, bar none,” retorted Endersby, turning to the arrogant man. Endersby’s hand lifted ready to strike. The inspector checked himself, however, on hearing a faint gasp from the sniffling servant girl. Stott came up behind Dupré. The sergeant placed his hands on the manager’s shoulders and persuaded him to sit down.

  “Now, ladies and gentlemen, I shall not take much more of your time,” Endersby said, his voice calming. “No doubt you are exhausted from having made a grand dinner this evening. It was for six men, I believe, six cousins from Shropshire. A pleasant number for a table. Pray, cook, what was your fish dish?”

  The cook stood silent, bewildered. “Madam?” insisted the inspector. The cook glanced first at Dupré, who ignored her. Mrs. Croft was implored next, but no response.

  “There wasn’t any, Inspector,” came the answer at last from the cook.

  “What a pity. I myself am fond of fish as a first.”

  The footman made a gesture to speak.

  “Yes, sir. Memory jogs, does it?” said Endersby, his voice taking on a pleasant if still edgy tone.

  “Only mutton stew, tonight, Inspector. And that’s the truth of it.”

  “Well, not quite, my man. A footman is a respectable profession. I admire your patience. But it is not in my experience a posting which requires a man to obstruct the course of justice.”

  “I do not follow, sir,” said the footman, now demonstrably nervous, as his left eye-lid had suddenly taken to fluttering.

  “Oh, do not go on,” whined Dupré. “What a hopeless ninny you are.”

  “Mr. Dupré, I shall not warn you again,” said Inspector Endersby.

  “Sir?” enquired the footman.

  “We were speaking of the truth. It is my impression, from my earlier visit this evening, that the truth has somehow been warped. The cook made no fish, you speak of stew, and yet I understood there was to be a dinner. Well, what happened to it? Were the relatives delayed? Did they float into the ether?”

  “They came and went. Nothing more,” said Dupré.

  “And fed on dust, did they, Dupré?”

  “My servants do not lie, Inspector.”

  “Unless paid to do so. The club man I spoke with told me a fine story. Until I checked his receipt book. There was the matter of time being conveniently manipulated.”

  The present company made no sound.

  “What did you gain, Dupré, from these arrangements? Your servants stand in fear before you. I can see that. The club man made a fool of himself and you.”

  “This is preposterous. On Friday, I went for supper, I came home, I went to bed.”

  “Granted, you did those things. So, you are innocent?”

  “Most certainly. You are here to berate me into a false confession.”

  “I am here as a public official to find out the truth about a man’s death, Dupré. You have set up a wall of lies to stop me. Or, at least, to make me jump and fall about. Yet, you say you are not guilty. Here sits, ladies and gentlemen, London’s greatest theatre manager. A man who pays off his club man to secure his innocence. But why? Is this innocence the dream of a madman?”

  “Sir,” spoke Mrs. Croft. She reached behind her to the hearth and took down a jug.

  “Croft, leave that be,” ordered Dupré. “You shall find yourself without employment, I assure you.”

  The woman stopped.

  “What are you afraid of, Dupré?” asked Endersby.

  “I cannot oblige you, Henry,” said Mrs. Croft. She took the jug, walked to the table and turned the jug out. A jingle of sovereigns rolled onto the surface. “Take your money back, Henry. I, for one, will not stand by and support a lie for little reason.”

  “You stupid beast.”

  “Dupré, control yourself.”

  “I ask you to leave, Inspector.” Henry Robertson Dupré stood up. Endersby signaled to Stott. The sergeant’s strong arms took hold of Dupré and forced him back down into his chair. The inspector then walked over to the seething man, sat on the edge of the table and faced him.

  “If I cannot persuade you here, Dupré, it is my duty to escort you to Scotland Yard.”

  “On what charge? You have no right to touch me.”

  “On suspicion of unlawful acts. You are man of logic, Dupré. Imagine my perspective. I see a situation wherein a powerful man is usurped by another; I see a man whose anger is immediate; I hear from others that this same man—who professes to be a gentleman—takes advantage of wome
n. Indeed, he seduces them. Nay, he threatens to rape them at his pleasure. And not just penny-a-throw whores. No, leading singers of the Italian opera. I hear from reliable sources that Mr. Cake came to warn a certain Miss Elisabetta Mazzini to beware of you, since you are considered a dangerous man. This careful Samuel Cake, on the same night, was found beaten to death in his house. A man in a cloak was seen leaving Mr. Cake’s house in Doughty Street under suspicious circumstances. You own a cloak, Dupré, you hide it in the floor of your office, and you use it as a disguise for visiting whores. I discover, in fine, that you have bribed a man to say one thing against another. And that your household itself is a bastion of tongue-tied individuals who received a clutch of sovereigns to keep their mouths shut. All this, Mr. Dupré, leads me to believe you are hiding something. You are indeed hampering an investigation into a murder. This is serious on all counts.”

  “Miss Mazzini is a liar.”

  “To what purpose? She is a woman of reputation. She gained to her advantage from what Mr. Cake told her. She became safe from you.”

  “Cake was a coward. And a thief.”

  “Worthy of a beating?”

  “I wanted to make sure the club man would not lie about me.”

  “Was it worth so much of your time and effort? To secure a sycophant’s tongue?”

  “Inspector, men such as he are always ready to deride. He is a snake in the garden. I wanted to be sure his memory could not falter.”

  “But if you are innocent, why did you need to pay out coin? Especially since you are a man who is on the brink of financial difficulty.”

  “This greasy world runs on money, Inspector. Reputations rise and fall because of it.”

  “But we are still missing the mark, Dupré. You claim you are innocent. Yet, you sully the water you bathe in. I am not certain I can see the run of the plot.”

  “He is protecting himself,” the stuttering servant girl cried out.

  For the second time this day, Inspector Endersby was astonished by this girl named Jane. A moment before, she was sniffling. Earlier in the evening, she had been stammering with shyness. Now she stood by the footman, her head up, her tongue steady in her head.

  “Protecting himself from what?” asked Endersby.

  “His own shame.” Jane said coming forward.

  “Quiet, Jane. She is innocent in all of this, Inspector,” said Mrs. Croft. She stepped into the circle of light at the table.

  “I am not, mum,” cried the girl.

  “Let me speak, Jane,” said Mrs. Croft. “Inspector, I am a good Christian woman. I work hard in this fine house. I work beside good people. Mr. Dupré, he is an artist of sorts. Men like him need their pleasures and their private ways.”

  “No, mum, no,” argued Jane.

  Dupré put his head in his hands.

  “Mr. Dupré cannot help himself, sir,” the servant Jane then confessed.

  “I am not sure, Jane, what you mean,” said Endersby.

  “He is afraid, sir. Afraid for himself, for his soul, for us here. Look, yourself, you said it, he is London’s finest. Yes, he is. But he cannot let little men bring him to his knees.”

  “Jane, you are talking gibberish,” said Mrs. Croft.

  “No, mum. I ain’t the fool. I can see what I can see.” The girl’s outburst of passion astounded the others. Jane was breathing hard, as if she had been chased by a wild dog. Her face was red. Endersby wondered if she might spontaneously combust and burn down the kitchen in the process.

  “Tell me, Jane, what you know then,” said Endersby. “I want to hear from your memory what happened in this house on Friday last. Shame or no, I want you to tell me about your master. To be sure his reputation—and his innocence--is worthy of your praise.”

  “It is. It is,” the stalwart Jane now said. “My master came home with the link boy just after half twelve, as he said.” Jane hesitated; she considered a moment and went on. “On Friday last, after he came in from his club, I took him his bedclothes as I always do.”

  “Jane, it is not your place,” said Mrs. Croft. “Inspector, I cannot let this child speak of such things. It is not right.”

  “Let her be, Mrs, Croft,” said Henry Robertson Dupré, his voice quieter now.

  “He loves me, is all, sir. He always comes to me at night. He says he must. So, he does. So, he has shame of it, too.”

  “Is this the truth, Mrs. Croft?” asked Endersby.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How old are you, young Jane,” Endersby said.

  “Fifteen, sir.”

  “And so, Jane,” Endersby continued, “go on. What happened?”

  “He came to me, sir. He took his bath, and he came into my bed as he always does.”

  Mrs. Croft sat down at the table. In her sad, tired eyes Endersby noted a sense of defeat.

  “Did he stay there for long, Jane?” Endersby asked. The servants stood in the outer ring of light from the candle, their faces glum.

  “Of course, sir. He always does. That’s his need and his shame, sir. He always falls to sleep, too, in my arms, and he did on Friday last, he was so worn and tired.”

  “The rest of you,” said Endersby to the watching, silent figures in the room. “What do you have to say to this?”

  Mrs. Croft raised her worn face. “I can speak for them, Inspector. Jane tells the truth. Mr. Dupré did not leave on Friday night after he arrived home. He is a man of custom, in his own way.” The voice of the woman was so sorrowful and full of pity that Endersby had to pause. He looked toward Stott, whose eyes were held hard on Dupré.

  “Mr. Dupré, you are a great fool,” Endersby said, breaking the momentary silence.

  Dupré looked up with a pained expression.

  “You are a man protected and secured by this company,” Endersby went on, “and yet you deigned to abuse them with your own mistrust. What did you fear losing?”

  “When Samuel Cake was found dead on Saturday morning last,” Dupré faltered. “I had a terrible fear. I feared that someone like you might come knocking at my door, a finger pointed. Lord Harwood was ready enough to throw me into the gutter. Who else was ready to do so? ‘Down, down I come like glistering Phaeton.’ Am I not like that very king, sir? Subject to the jealousy and spite of others?”

  “Mr. Dupré, you are a man who trades in fantasy. Perhaps you have let that blind you to human kind.”

  “Human kind, Inspector, as you no doubt have seen more than I, is no better than dung in the road.”

  “But not in this room, sir. Surely you can see that.”

  Inspector Endersby pulled out the bloodied glove from his satchel. He unfolded it and handed it to Jane.

  “Have you ever seen this item before, Jane?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And you, Mrs, Croft?”

  “No.”

  “I found it at Doughty Street. Those marks you see in this light are spots of Mr. Cake’s blood.”

  Jane pulled back.

  “Blood from his skull, which was beaten so badly his face was not recognizable. May I ask you to put it on, Mr. Dupré.”

  Henry Robertson Dupré leaned forward, and in the hushed room surrounded by candle-shadow, he pulled the glove over his hand. He held it up. The glove was loose, slipping. He pulled it off.

  “But what does this prove, Inspector?”

  “Unfortunately, nothing. It is the only piece of evidence left by one of the intruders, perhaps even the killer. It seems it is not yours, if I can believe your servants’ testimony.”

  “Inspector, my servants have told you the truth.”

  “You admit this now, Dupré?”

  “I came from my club by half twelve or a few minutes past. I took by bath. Miss Elisabetta Mazzini was to have supped with me, but she had left. I had only Jane, here, to keep me company. I admit to that.”

  Endersby moved from the table and walked slowly to the kitchen door and then back. Sergeant Stott came up to him. “What do we do now, sir?”

&nbs
p; Endersby rubbed his knee. He was still wearing his hat, gloves and wet coat and he was feeling so tired he wanted to lie on the stones of the floor. “Fetch paper, ink and pen.”

  The footman opened a drawer and drew out the items. Endersby took hold of the quill and handed it first to Dupré. “You shall write out what you did detail by detail on Friday night last. Just as you have spoken it. Afterwards, add your signature to the page. A signature is binding, Dupré. Please remember that. Mrs, Croft, can your servant girls read and write?”

  “Jane can, sir.”

  “And cook?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Take each one alone into your pantry. Those who cannot write, have them tell you what they saw and did on Friday night last and then sign the paper. Do not collude in any way.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mrs. Croft, a quick pot of tea for us all, please.”

  “Yes, Inspector.”

  The rain began again to beat the windows. When Dupré had finished writing, he handed the paper to Stott with a brusque flick of his hand and stood from his chair. He came up to Endersby.

  “Are you satisfied?” his voice in Endersby’s ear. “Are you at last satisfied?”

  “Justice, Mr. Dupré.” Endersby put down his cup and saucer.

  “I shall report you to your superintendent. I shall tell my man at the Chronicle this sordid story.”

  “To what purpose?”

  “To my satisfaction, Inspector. That is enough. You Bow Street donkeys believe you can run our streets, bully gentlemen in their own homes. Unconscionable.”

  “Justice is a harsh mistress, Dupré. Luckily, she is blind.”

  “Get out of my house this instant!”

  “I cannot, Dupré, until I have performed my duties. There are papers still to collect.”

  Dupré clapped his hands. “Get on, all of you.” He glared at Stott, then he left the room. A door slammed upstairs.