by Joan Lock
It was, of course. ‘But it’s so sudden … ’
‘These things are, young man,’ she laughed but added more sadly, ‘These things are. Poor lamb. I hope she was all right.’
‘Couldn’t we enquire,’ asked Best recklessly, ‘in a neighbourly fashion?’
‘Oh no!’ said Mrs O’Connor sharply. ‘That you cannot do!’ She pushed some imaginary escapee strands back into her bun. ‘That would not be advisable. Not at all. They are a law unto themselves those people. A law unto themselves.’
Her round and kindly face had grown pink to the roots of her snowy hair. Something was chiming with Best. Something she had said. He just couldn’t put a finger on it.
A slightly embarrassed silence followed this unusual outburst from their landlady. Surprisingly, it was broken by Murphy, who might well have not even noticed the conversational lull.
‘What would we be having for pudding, Mrs O’Connor?’ he enquired. Murphy loved his puddings.
She brightened. ‘My best apple pie from the first of the crop.’
Even Best’s mouth watered at the thought and the sharp, sweet smell now filtering through from the kitchen.
‘Oh lovely,’ said Linwood, finishing off the last of his hotpot. ‘I do enjoy your pies, Mrs O’Connor.’ He patted his stomach. ‘Good thing I’m not going swimming tonight.’
This gave Best an opportunity to pick up the conversational ball by asking the young man what he thought of the idea being bandied about that the now-derelict site of the old Highbury Barn Pleasure Gardens should be turned into an open-air swimming pool for the ladies.
A spirited exchange on the subject took place presided over by a smiling Mrs O’Connor who liked to see her gentlemen ‘getting on’. The pool was generally thought to be a good idea, but it was agreed it was no good trying to make it mixed, due to the fact that when it came to outdoor bathing some men persisted in shamelessly swimming not only minus the appropriate apparel but sometimes with no apparel whatsoever. This put even the surrounding areas of such places out of bounds to the ladies.
‘But should they be swimming at all?’ asked Murphy abruptly. Having begun to speak he now seemed to be in danger of becoming garrulous.
They all turned to look at him queryingly.
‘It’s unladylike, wouldn’t you say?’
Best had been touched by the frequent reports of accidental drownings in his Illustrated London News. These occurred chiefly during the summer months and particularly involved women and children, he informed the gathering. Then he wrung their hearts with one of the latest news items which described how three young ladies, of aristocratic birth, had been rowing on a lake in Somerset when their boat overturned.
‘Two were rescued but the third, who was only eighteen, drowned.’
The apple pie was served to murmurs of ‘Shame’, and ‘How pitiful’.
The talk was entitled THE PITMEN OF NORTHUMBERLAND AND DURHAM: Their Social Habits and Religious Observances. The speaker, Mr Armytage, began by assuring his amiable audience of working-men that, contrary to rumour, these pitmen were not morally lax.
‘In fact,’ he insisted, ‘in this respect, their position is far above that of the ordinary working men in large towns.’ Oddly, the ordinary working-men present showed no resentment at this possible slight but continued to listen respectfully as Mr Armytage admitted that nonetheless the pitmen’s religious observances were ‘very primitive’ and that parsons did little to rectify this matter. ‘The Methodists do much more to help reform these sturdy sons of labour,’ he assured them.
Best groaned inwardly and gave a sidelong glance at Smith who pretended to be unaware of his colleague’s boredom. Fortunately, after the obligatory religious message (it was Sunday, after all), Mr Armytage lightened the proceedings with various humorous tales. These involved the miners’ liking for ale, their tasty shortbreads known as ‘Singing Hinnies’ and the propensity of wives not to wait as long to remarry after the death of their husbands as would those in polite circles.
Indeed, had not one young widow been obliged to refuse a proposal while leaving the church because she had already accepted another just as they were loading her husband’s body on the cart?
He could tell a good tale and Best and Smith soon joined in the hearty laughter.
Smith had been talking to the other members before Best had arrived, so once the speaker was finished, to rapturous applause, they were able to escape out into the club’s pleasant garden.
There Smith confessed that he had not learned a great deal about local baby-farming from the men on this occasion. It was hardly a subject to just touch upon out of the blue with strangers, he pointed out, he would return and get around to that. He had, however, received some funny looks when confessing he had a painful ailment and was considering consulting Dr Helman.
‘He’d be good for some things, I hear tell,’ laughed a sharp-featured man with heavily calloused hands. ‘Ladies’ ailments!’ But warning glances from his pals had caused him to shut up then.
‘I expect some of their ladies have made use of his services,’ murmured Best.
Best was relieved to hear that Martha’s recent outing did not appear to have resulted in a further body being found. Some other news was less welcome. Relf had taken up residence close by – in the other suspect house – and Cheadle was foaming at the mouth in consequence. He wanted results quickly.
‘It doesn’t help that things are very tricky back at the Yard what with Cheadle and Mr Vincent not getting on.’
Mr Howard Vincent, the new head of the branch, was a barrister, though one with little experience at the bar, also a toff and, worse, a civilian! He had no police experience either but was now trying to shape the old detective branch in the mould of the Sûreté which he considered superior to its British equivalent. Most Englishmen thought the French Police a darn sight too powerful.
‘They’re saying Vincent would like to get rid of Cheadle but daren’t yet. Finds him embarrassing. Too coarse. Not suitable to be part of his grand new plan.’
‘He’d be a fool if he did. The man might be ignorant but he and John Shore are the best detectives in town.’
‘He’s honest too.’
Best grimaced. It was a sore point. The department was still licking the wounds acquired when no less than four of its senior members stood in the dock on criminal charges only a year earlier. The branch’s duties had involved some immersion in the corrupt horse-racing world and some had become rather too immersed.
The trouble had begun when a gang of fraudsters made it known in France that, due to his many wins, a certain Mr Montgomery could no longer find bookies to accept his bets. He was looking, therefore, for people to place them for him. They surmised that, seeing just how successful Mr Montgomery was (by sleight of hand), these go-betweens would not be able to resist placing some of their own money. And so it transpired.
One wealthy old lady wanted to bet £10,000 but the villains, seeing an easy mark, pressed her for more. Her lawyer became suspicious and the ultimate result was the arrest and imprisonment of the fraudsters.
Some policemen had been puzzled that, even after being identified, the criminal fugitives had proved so hard to track down. It was almost as if they knew every move the police were about to make. All became clear when the villains revealed that for several years they had been bribing senior detectives at Scotland Yard. These included three of the four chief inspectors, Palmer, Clark and Druscovich.
Best had been particularly sad about the downfall of the bright and natty Druscovich who had been kind to him in his early days. The rise of this officer had been remarkably rapid but then he was able, keen, hardworking and multi-lingual.
Druscovich had been depicted by the Press as the most evil and culpable, probably because he was of Polish descent, Best thought. Drawings of the four accused in dock had shown him leering wickedly, while the Scottish-born Inspector Meiklejohn, appeared relatively innocuous. Led astray by a dastardly fore
igner one would imagine. In fact, it was Meiklejohn who had been the instigator. Druscovich had been dragged into it when unable to meet a bill for sixty pounds which he had backed for his brother. Meiklejohn, already wealthy enough through bribes to help his colleague, merely said he knew someone who could be of assistance and who would ask no favours in return.
Clark, the oldest of the accused, had been acquitted and immediately retired, but the other three were found guilty and sentenced to two years’ hard labour. That had been a year ago and Best was saddened to learn that Druscovich’s health was now failing.
A commission of enquiry recommended many changes including a new name: Criminal Investigation Department; the advent of Howard Vincent and, Best was relieved to see, improvement in the measly expenses and allowances.
The two remaining inspectors had been promoted to chief inspector, and several of the branch’s twenty sergeants had begun filling the new requirement for twenty inspectors. Best was not yet one of them and he didn’t know why. Maybe his friendship with Druscovich had made him suspect. Two foreigners together. Best’s mother had been Italian and his proficiency in the language had helped him become a Yard detective – they had so many extradition cases with which to cope. Ironically, there was now to be a special sub department for such duties and he was not in it – he had been relieved to find. Despite the foreign travel, extradition could be tedious, and Best enjoyed variety.
Now it seemed that Cheadle was being provoked by Howard Vincent’s obvious disdain into acting uncharacteristically.
‘He’s threatening to send in the troops and raid your suspect house,’ explained Smith. ‘Or of withdrawing you altogether and claiming there is obviously no evidence.’
‘That would be stupid!’ exclaimed Best. ‘They are at it, I know they are. I just can’t catch them by myself. If I’m out the back they might be leaving by the front door and who knows what they are doing while I am here now. Tell him I need help. Ask him if you can come in for a few days. I’ll fix it with Mrs O’Connor – say you’re my cousin.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘You’ll get a better night’s sleep in John Street,’ Best tempted. He’d enjoy a bit of company too, particularly that of this cheerful young man. He was becoming lonely for his own kind.
‘That’s tempting!’ Smith laughed.
‘He has fixed it for Tuesday, hasn’t he?’ Best asked, suddenly anxious.
Smith nodded. ‘Oh yes. I’m to be out on the street with my ice-cream cart all the time you are away.’
Best relaxed. ‘Good. Good.’ The evening air was bringing out the scent of the roses. Best gazed around, smiled, and took a deep breath.
He could see Smith was hesitating. Concerned but still a little too in awe of him to venture personal questions. He settled for the innocuous one. ‘So, exactly what time is Helen arriving?’
‘One o’clock.’
‘You must be getting excited about seeing her again?’ he ventured further.
‘Yes.’ Best looked away so that Smith would not notice the tears start into his eyes.
When Emma had died so cruelly such a short a time after their marriage he had thought he would never love again. That was before Helen; ‘the English mouse’ had wormed her way into his affections despite her obvious resistance to his Latin charms.
Best had not only inherited his mother’s dark good looks but had been brought up among striking women similarly blessed and eager to please their men.
Then, while searching for her missing sister, he had been thrown into the company of this mousy-haired, independent painter lady who hadn’t given a fig whether she pleased him or not. Not only that, she had refused to marry him saying that to be surrounded by children and tied to household chores would end her life as a painter. She’d seen it happen so many times so, like some others of her kind, she had elected to remain single.
Best had brought his considerable charm to bear and so obviously loved her that she had softened and promised to consider the matter deeply and give him a definite answer when she returned from her further training in Paris.
Since she had been away, his family had placed many an attractive and eager young woman in his path, but all the while he had been worrying that Helen would meet someone else while in France. Someone more of her class and artistically inclined.
But it seemed not. The tone of her letters had filled him with hope – sometimes. At others, when lying awake in the dead of night, he began to hate her and wonder why he was being foolish enough to let his life drift away in this fashion.
Chapter Five
It was twenty-five minutes to ten on the morning of Tuesday, 3 September 1878, and Martha was on the move again. Best was in his room completing his reading of yesterday’s edition of the Islington Gazette, filling in time until he could leave for Victoria and Helen, when he heard the thump of number seven’s front door closing.
He rushed to the window just in time to see Martha turning left again towards Liverpool Road. She was carrying a flannel-wrapped bundle and a small valise. He grabbed his hat and jacket, opened his door and, making no attempt to be discreet, bounded down the stairs past a surprised Daisy, the wispy, young maid-of-all-work.
Up to now Daisy, who came in every day, had only seen this strange invalid creeping cautiously around as if any sudden movement might cause him to fall to pieces but Best was determined not to lose track of Martha this time.
Once again, he caught up with Martha at Liverpool Road. There was no sign of young Smith and his ice-cream cart, but then he wasn’t supposed to be on watch until eleven o’clock and that was an hour and a half away.
This time Martha had walked further along to the right as far as the oddly turreted Islington Poor Relief office on the corner of Barnsbury Street and when she crossed the Liverpool Road did so less recklessly than before. She had swopped her usual dreary squashed black hat for an almost girlish, pale-yellow straw, trimmed with a cheeky marguerite which bounced as she walked. That should make her easier to keep track of in a crowd. Indeed, there was a different air about her today – purposeful but lighter somehow.
They were off again. Same route. Down Barnsbury Street towards Upper Street. It was a beautiful morning. Bright, sunny and still yet with a freshness and dewy quality to the atmosphere. A good-to-be-alive day.
Best was looking splendidly dark and handsome. He had treated himself to the cleanest and most careful of shaves and his moustache was perfectly trimmed. The toes of his best, side-sprung, mock-buttoned Balmoral boots glinted in the sunlight, the nap of his chestnut-brown bowler had been brushed silky smooth and he had compromised his quietened-down attire with a waistcoat which, while black, had threads which gleamed oh so discreetly as he moved. He was a poem in brown and black. Not for him the dull, black-only uniform of so many males these days.
Several young ladies turned a speculative eye upon this vision as he strode by, but his mind was fixed anxiously on Helen and their appointment. He had re-lived their meeting so many times. He couldn’t forego it now! That would be too much to bear. Still time, still time, he told himself. Martha’s probably only going down the road and back again.
Martha turned left into Upper Street. Yes, the same route. That made him feel better. Even though he had lost her last time he knew she had arrived back home soon after he had. He relaxed a little. As before, they passed the draper’s, boot and shoemaker’s, upholsterers-cum-undertakers, and so on. On they went. Suddenly, just about where he had lost her before, she turned into a shop, one of the smaller, cheaper drapers along this stretch. He, too, stopped, his eye ostensibly caught by their window display of gentlemen’s stiff collars cunningly arranged into circular towers.
He saw Martha talking to a small, scrawny, bird-like woman. The flannel bundle was on the counter between them. Martha unrolled it and began holding up several items one after the other. They were mostly baby clothes and shawls. Best remembered that it was heaps of such items on the premises which had helped hang Mrs
Waters – their presence poignantly indicating just how many little mites had passed through her hands.
Martha began shaking her head and started to rewrap her parcel. The small woman stayed her hand, pointed to something in the heap. Martha held it up – a brown dress with cheap, torn lace at the neck – just like the one Nella had worn! There was more talking then Martha shrugged and nodded resignedly. Money changed hands.
Martha was leaving. He turned his head away but could see by the window reflection that she was turning left. Best waited a second or two then followed again. He would rather have gone into the shop to have a better look at that dress but there was still the matter of what was in that valise and he daren’t lose her again.
She made a quick dash across Upper Street then went straight down Canonbury Lane and on into leafy Canonbury Square with its elegant tall, dark Georgian houses. What on earth was she doing here? Where could she be going? The square, like much of Islington, had begun to go downhill somewhat now that the ever-expanding railways were allowing the better-off easy access to the nearby countryside, but the inhabitants of Canonbury Square remained relatively well-to-do. Maybe she had a servant friend here?
Cutting across the centre of the square was Canonbury Road, the start of an important artery into the City of London. It was here that Martha turned left, then crossed the road and continued northwards towards Highbury Corner.
Ah, this was more like it. Up here there was a plant nursery and higgledy-piggledy groups of small, older village dwellings, undisturbed by rebuilding. He knew they were still there because the Islington Gazette reported that some of the residents were complaining to the Vestry about cabmen washing their vehicles in their small square and goats being allowed to run around unrestrained. It could be that Martha had a relative down there.