by Jon Redfern
“I am too clumsy with my gouty foot to accompany you, Stott. You are a brave man and capable.”
“Thank you, Inspector.”
Endersby took a large muslin bag out of a drawer near his puzzle table. Its top was gathered with a string.
“Here it is, Stott. You know where to go. Be on guard, and if worse comes to worst, our respected superintendent will stand by you—I shall make sure of that.”
Stott opened the bag then drew it closed to be sure it was sturdy. Endersby led him down the inner staircase to the street. “You shall have to walk, sergeant, but be quick.” From his satchel, Endersby drew out a final item for his sergeant. “Take this,” he said. He handed Stott a fork made of the finest German steel. It was broad, its handle made of wood. Stott turned it over in his hand and gave his superior a brief, but confused look.
“I wondered if you might enquire,” chuckled Endersby. “No, this is not a jest. It is a trick of mine. I use the steel as a lever. See, its handle is well made and strongly attached to the spine. It is the best implement I have found for sliding under sashes and lifting windows.”
Stott grinned at the novelty of the object in its new-found function. “I shall endeavour to perform to the utmost, sir, fork and all.”
Endersby shook his sergeant’s hand. “I am depending on you, Stott. Very much, indeed.”
The sergeant set off into the smoky light of the street. On his way back upstairs, Endersby had a hunch that this trick would work. He was certain his instinct in this instance would not prove him a fool.
“At least, I hope not, old gander.”
After his bath, he found to his surprise, a thin band of flickering light coming from under Harriet’s bedroom door.
“I can hear you, dear one,” she said. Without knocking, Endersby entered and beheld Harriet standing by her bed, dressed in a long blue gown.
“I bought it for tomorrow evening,” she beamed.
Her hair was done up in her nightcap, and the incongruity of the two items of her dress made Owen Endersby smile with delight.
“A fetching ensemble I might say, Harriet.”
“Owen, I see that Solange has had an influence. You are now speaking to me in French.”
“One word at a time, madam. Slow and steady am I.”
Harriet reached out and held Endersby in her arms. “I have procured a box for the opening night, tomorrow, at Old Drury.”
“Splendid.”
“A Christmas extravaganza. The Beauty and the Beast.”
“Indeed.”
“And rumour has it…”
“From whom, may I ask?”
“Why, Mrs. DeForest next door.”
“Rumour has it…?”
“That Her Majesty will be in attendance. With the Prince.”
“Splendid again.”
“You shall accompany me, of course.”
“Most certainly. On two counts.”
“How do you mean, dear Owen?”
“Pleasure and business.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Thursday, December 24, 1840
Snow had been light for the past hour. Owen Endersby let himself out again and stood in the back courtyard of Number 6 Cursitor Street, staring at the leaden sky. A breeze, chilly and wet, swept the cobbles. Endersby heard footsteps. He stepped under the porch, and while waiting, listened to the cry of a baby in rooms above him.
“Hurry up, man.”
Endersby peeked out from the porch and squinted. Had the man gone home and slept? Had he been caught?
“What are you doing, Owen dear?”
Endersby turned and addressed his wife, whose head had popped out of the second storey window directly above him.
“Taking the air, Harriet.”
“Indeed you are. And, I presume, the snow and wind. What about your breakfast?”
“I shall come up in due time.”
“Please invite Mr. Stott to join us, will you?”
“I shall, I shall.”
The window clicked shut, and Endersby marched briskly through the slush of the courtyard to the street entrance. He left footprints in the mud by the doorway. His slippers felt clammy with water. He regretted dressing so quickly this morning. He wore only a frock coat and trousers and his coat over his shoulders. He reminded himself that he must choose a waistcoat for today, one suitable to the evening he would spend later on at Old Drury. The street was empty and cold. Behind him, a rushing of feet. Endersby swivelled and beyond the passage on the far side of the courtyard, through the other entrance, Sergeant Stott came pacing like a soldier into battle. “At last, here he is, old gander,” Endersby whispered.
“Sir,” cried Stott and held up the muslin bag. It bulged at the bottom. For answer, Endersby clapped his hands. “Is it a hit, Sergeant. Have we our quarry?”
“We do, sir.”
Endersby inspected the bag. Snow fluttered onto its crumpled contents. Drawing the string tight, Endersby shook the hand of his sergeant and invited him for morning tea and toast.
“If it is all the same to you, sir, I shall go home to my bed for a few hours.”
“You were not caught then, nor discovered?”
“No sir. Quiet as a flea.”
“And it was where we guessed it was?”
“Exactly as you had surmised, sir. An apt deduction, I might add.”
“Thank you, sergeant. Off you go then.”
“At what place shall we meet next?”
“’In thunder, lightening or in rain?’” quipped Endersby.
Stott looked bewildered for a second, his large face showing the effects of a sleepless, harrowing night of house-breaking and thievery.
“Never mind, Sergeant. It was a joke of mine. A quote from Mr. Shakespeare.”
“I see, sir, thank you.”
“Gather Caldwell and Birken—I think we can fool Borne for the moment—and claim I have duties for them all if asked by our noble superintendent. I shall have to make an effort today, in fact, to delve into the lodging house business. Even on Christmas Eve day, I know. Nevertheless, we shall then meet at Vinegar Yard for our strategy.”
“What, sir, shall we do in the meanwhile? We shall no doubt be discovered for last night’s foray?”
“No doubt. But our culprit will wonder who could have done it. And what to do about it? In my ken, the guilty always choose to seem innocent and oddly enough remain so even in light of their imminent capture. We shall wait and see. There is far too much at stake today for our felon to flee. And indeed, sir, given what you have just seen these past few hours, we may safely wonder if any discovery will be made at all.”
“Most likely, sir.”
“Now to your sunny bed. Tonight, just past supper, at Vinegar Yard. No. Better meet me with Caldwell in the backstage hall of the theatre. Send Birken to guard, as we discussed. Before you sleep, please attend to the safeguarding of this bag, as we have also discussed. Let us meet just at curtain-time, at eight o’clock. I am attending the grand Christmas extravaganza and shall be on guard within the pit itself.”
* * *
“Damnation.”
Henry Robertson Dupré once again undid his unruly cravat and started over. Fold to the left, fold under, once to the right, and balance.
“Jane!” The room was cold. His hearth fire lay in ashes, greyer than the snow-swept street outside. “Mrs. Croft, damn you!”
Dupré stepped to his dressing table, picked up a bell and rang it. No more than five minutes later, he drew on his Turkish robe, tied its silken ropes around his waist, and went into the hall. “Is anyone stirring in this confounded house?”
Down the stairs into the hall, he called out again. The faint morning sun ushered him toward the staircase to the kitchen. Shafts of light were the only illumination afforded him as the tapers in the hall and foyer were unlit. The stairs creaked as always, but this morning they resounded with a cry which alarmed him. He half expected to find his rooms ransacked, his furniture broken into p
ieces, his servants bashed and bloodied and lying face down on the floor. The large windows in the kitchen remained dark, as their muslin curtains had yet to be pulled open.
“Jane? Mrs. bloody Croft. Where in Hades are the two of you?”
No kettle boiled, no pan sat on the fire. Where was cook? The table lay empty. Five wooden chairs pushed close against it, their tight formation impressing Dupré as sulky resistance to his domestic authority. Dupré scraped one of the chairs out from the table and sat down. What he wanted was his tea. What he needed was medicine for his tumbling stomach. He also feared something worse, though he refused to say it to himself. An old complaint had returned—an itching, a burning sensation, a discharge. And to think he had been careful, cleaning himself afterwards, always pissing right away, always checking his sheaths to be sure the oil kept them pliable. Wretches, all of them, he thought. Sows and bitches.
He banged his fist on the table. A door opened, and he saw a figure in a bonnet carrying a portmanteau. The figure ran past him and through the area door into the street. “Jane? Where in God’s world are you going?” Jane mounted the outdoor steps and ran off. Dupré smacked his lips, rubbed his eyes and wanted to go back to bed. He marched into the pantry. Here he was accosted by a familiar figure in a shawl and bonnet and gloves. “Mrs. Croft. At last! What in the devil are you doing dressed in street clothes at this hour? May I enquire as to what you and the rest of your paltry company are doing?”
Mrs. Croft swept passed him. Dupré could see she had been weeping. He trailed her into the kitchen. “Where are you going, Croft?” he asked, his voice plaintive as a lost boy’s.
“Henry, I shall not stand for this arrangement any longer. This time you have done harm and gone too far.”
“You are impertinent, Croft. Come to your senses.”
“Do not speak to me in your master’s tone, little Henry. You are a prodigal son, if ever there was one.”
“What have I done then?” Dupré whined, impatient and hungry.
“Are you blind as well as senseless? You never were a cruel child. You were once so…”
“Stop this, Croft. I wake to find my house cold, my servants fled, and you are babbling about my childhood.”
“Your poor mother would have been ashamed of you.”
“My poor mother would have exulted in me. She was a greedy, stupid woman as you well know. A whore of the first order. She would have loved this house and my money. Please, Croft, you are carrying on.”
“Miss Jane is ill, Henry. She is ill because of you and your carelessness. She is bleeding. She has been to a physician, and she has lost a mass of blood.”
“And so?”
“Henry, how can you be so thoughtless? Jane was carrying a baby. Yours.”
“Claptrap. Even so, dashing into the wintry street at year’s end is no way to protect one’s self. Has the ninny gone completely mad?”
“She is ill in another way, Henry. The way your mother was.”
“Nonsense,” Dupré bellowed. “I’ve not harmed that child.”
Mrs. Croft sighed. “Do not lie, Henry. Face your evildoing.”
At these words, Henry Robertson Dupré halted his breath, as if he’d fallen into a deep crevice of glacial ice. Finally, finally. His mind jumped back and forth in time. His hands fidgeted, became slippery with a cold sweat. No, he thought, I will not admit it. I will not reveal to the old badger my own present physical discomfort. Would he have to restrain Mrs. Croft somehow? What a temptation there was to strike her down. To punish her for her searing tongue.
“I have decided to leave, Henry,” Mrs. Croft said in a quiet voice. “As a caring, responsible Christian, I must look after poor Jane. Your house is no longer a welcoming place to work. I do not need references, so do not try and bully me into staying.”
“Preposterous,” huffed Dupré. “What a smarmy Evangelical idiot you have become.” His voice shouted now with pain and betrayal. “You are far worse than my poxy mother.”
“I am sorry, Henry. Jane is distraught. But I think it best for her to be away from you.”
“How can you punish me like this?” Dupré’s voice fell into a sob.
“Goodbye, Henry.”
Mrs. Croft reached out to touch him on the head. In response, he slapped her away. She moved closer to him in spite of this, grabbed his wrist and when he tried to strike his fist against her, she pulled it to her heart and held it tight against her bosom. “I forgive you, Henry,” she said. “I turn my other cheek toward you. You are a man who must find his righteous way alone.”
“Get out, you mewling sod. I shan’t suffer your righteous Christian dung any further.”
Dupré struggled free, and with neither a feeling of regret nor a backward glance, he ran away from Mrs. Croft, crossing the kitchen and bounding up the back stairs. He waited, panting, to hear the area door to the kitchen click shut. Henry continued up the stairs from the kitchen until he reached the front hall and its adjacent parlour rooms. Out on the street, the figure of Mrs. Croft passed by the front windows, her head bowed into the new slanting snow. Henry scowled. As the moment wore on, an impatience grew in his heart. A surge of anger, like a gust of winter wind, thrust him into a frenzy. First he threw a Chinese vase onto the floor. Not satisfied with its shattering sound, he kicked a precious wooden chair, its clacking on the parquet so irritating, he instantly found himself in the parlour, fists clenched, his eyes roving the room. The urge to destroy felt as full of intent as his sexual appetite. He tore down a curtain; he hurled a table—chess pieces and all—at the cold hearth; shoving over the sofa, then the writing table, then the hearth screen brought red to his cheeks and water into his eyes. When he had finished he looked down at his right hand. A large, bloody gash cut across it like a gaping mouth. Blood dripped onto his Turkish robe. What he wanted now, more than anything, was the figure of Mrs. Croft to stand before him so that he could beat her, take a horsewhip, perhaps an umbrella, and whack her across her head and torso. Henry Robertson Dupré wondered if his very veins might burst. He ran upstairs. He splashed water onto his hand. Calming down, strolling into his cold bedroom, he fell across his bed. “Oh, oh,” he wept into his pillow.
He lay still until the chime on his mantel rang out in silvery tones. Then he rose, wiped his mouth, and wrapped a cloth from his washstand around his hand. He straightened his cravat and smoothed his hair. For a quick second, he stared at his posture in the looking glass then raised his chin.
“Damnation.”
* * *
Sun broke through the clouds, falling snow veils melted, and the breath of the city—chimney smoke—rose in regimented columns to combat the sudden brightness of the air. As Endersby and his two sergeants, Stott and Birken, approached the bank of the Thames, a sorry sight appeared before them. Gangs of mud larks, young, thin, sickly children, were scouring the banks’ muck for broken glass, tin, old leather—all of it rubbish for a penny to salvage. Beyond them in a small wooden boat, an oarsman pulled toward shore, his net bulky with a slimy object.
“Bring it in,” shouted Endersby. Stott wiped his nose with his handkerchief.
The boat ran up on the bank. The net was hauled in, and a body turned out onto a lone patch of stones. The mud larks ran over, and without a question or a sound began to rifle the soggy pockets. “Get away,” said Endersby. The wild-eyed children did not listen. They grabbed and pushed, and when nothing was found, they ran off down the bank like a pack of dogs. A lad, familiar to the inspector from the St. Giles district, stood by Endersby and pointed to the wrists of the corpse.
“Must be him, sir. Look’ee at ’em. Sliced, like Mr. Peacock said.”
“The body’s not been in the water long,” said Endersby. He instructed Stott and Birken to note the face and scratched hands. “Turn him over,” Endersby said to the oarsman. The man did as he was told, his face half-covered with a kerchief. His young daughter sat watching from the stern of the boat while she attached the net once again to its clamp.<
br />
The corpse had one eye.
“’Tis him,” said the lad. “He and t’other set the fires.”
“Stott, have this river-washed man brought to Scotland Yard. And call a surgeon. Superintendent Borne will be happy. We have been fortunate with witnesses to this man’s demise and testimony as to his deed.” Stott wished them a profitable day and went about the business of having the oarsman row him and the body across the river toward the docks where a police waggon would be secured.
Meanwhile, the lad led Endersby and Birken to the waiting cab, and together they bounced through the slippery holiday streets of the capital. Shop windows were festooned with wreaths and garlands of holly; butchers’ windows displayed squadrons of hanging capons and geese. Tonight, London would shine with frost and gaslight, and the grand theatres would unveil their pantomime extravaganzas to crowds eager for spectacle. The cab drove between tumbledown buildings, under a covered alley into St. Giles. At the burnt lodging house, Endersby and Birken went in and found the sooty man perched on a broken-down settee.
“Inspector, I see my trusty lad has found you. And the body?”
“Wrapped and delivered to Scotland Yard, Mr. Peacock,” said Endersby, laconically.
“I imagine the reward, sir?” said Peacock, lowering his voice.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You Bow Street men, you always get a bonus, nay? For getting the body, the conviction?”
“May I remind you Mr. Peacock, with due respect, we are now the Metropolitan Detective Police. Bow Street runners and their ways are a thing of the past.”
“But still, sir. Remuneration of one kind or another is surely part of police procedure?”