by A. Wendeberg
The judge waited for Sévère to take a seat in the prisoner’s dock, then he began to read the indictment, ‘The jurors of our Lady, the Queen, upon their oath present that Gavriel Sévère, former Coroner of Eastern Middlesex, on the second day of July, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and eighty one, feloniously, wilfully, and with malice aforethought, did kill one Doctor Peter Johnston, house surgeon of Guy’s Hospital, against the peace of our Lady, the Queen, her Crown, and dignity. How does the prisoner plead?’
‘Not guilty,’ Sévère said.
A small part of Olivia’s mind expected all men to rise, bow to Sévère, and release him right then. And that small part couldn’t grasp why a jury was empanelled and sworn, why everyone in the room looked sombre, why the trial continued undisturbed. Hadn’t they heard what Sévère said? A mad chuckle threatened to escape her. She pressed a palm to her mouth until her teeth cut the soft flesh of her upper lip.
The solicitor-general rose and began to outline the case. The man’s voice was without pitch, without passion, as he recounted what had occurred. Logic. Observation. And yes, such cases rested almost entirely on circumstantial evidence. One could not watch a killer do the deed. But the evidence was so complete, it would satisfy the jury beyond a shadow of a doubt that the prisoner committed the heinous crime of which he stood charged.
After one hour and twenty minutes, the solicitor-general straightened the hems of his robe with a snap, drank from a cup of tea, and called the first witness.
One Mr Walker, chemist at Whitechapel Road, stated that he had always found the prisoner to be a kind-hearted and amiable man.
Sévère arched an eyebrow. Olivia ground her teeth, wishing he wouldn’t appear so arrogant.
The chemist couldn’t say how long the prisoner had been suffering from joint pains, but he had been his customer for three months now, and was making up his own ointments for which he would buy the drugs. He would purchase small jars of white lard, aconitine powder, and arsenic. The chemist couldn’t say where the prisoner kept the drugs. Early in May, the prisoner came to the office as usual, and purchased fifty grains of aconitine and three small jars of white lard. He did not purchase arsenic as he usually did. The prisoner had shown no trace of uneasiness, and his appearance was not worried. There was no trace of abruptness. He was as kind as ever.
The solicitor-general stood, his expression that of utter astonishment, and asked the chemist if he had heard correctly. Did Coroner Sévère buy fifty grains — an eighth of an ounce — of aconitine at his office?
‘Yes, he did.’
‘And you did not find this amount alarming?’
‘Of course I did not. He is the Coroner.’
‘But don’t you know the law, Mr Walker? Dispensing chemists are not allowed to weigh more than a grain of aconitine.’
‘I do know the law, sir, but this was the Coroner who bought it from me. He is duly qualified. I did not expect…’
‘What did you not expect, Mr Walker?’
‘I did not expect that Mr Sévère might be planning something…unlawful.’
The chemist went on to explain the kind of aconitia he was keeping, which was Morson’s, and what he had read in the papers about Sévère, at which point Justice Hawkins shut the man up with a glance that made the entire jury flinch.
The cross-examination by Bicker was short. Was Walker sure that Sévère had bought the fifty grains, and not five or even less. Yes, he was quite certain.
‘Quite?’
‘Yes, quite certain.’
Bicker nodded, deep in thought. ‘You are in the habit of entering all sales of poisons into the poisons register, is that correct?’
‘Yes, we do.’
‘So of course you know precisely how much aconitia the prisoner has purchased.’
Mr Walker paused. ‘Sales to medical men are not entered into the poisons register.’
‘Did the prisoner pretend to be a medical man?’
‘Well… No, he did not.’
‘Mr Walker, I am puzzled. Aconitia and its preparations are under the Poisons Act. If a purchaser is not a medical man, you are legally obliged to enter the name of the purchaser, the quantity of the purchased poison, and the date of purchase into the register, and then you are to take the signatures. Yet you did none of these things. You do, however, recall clearly and with precision how much aconitia — aconitia, and not any other poison — the prisoner bought that day and what mood he was in. Would you mind telling me what else you sold that same day, and to whom, and would you mind describing the moods of every one of these customers?’
Walken’s face went blank. After some throat clearing he stated that he could, in fact, not name a single client. He was released from the witness stand, and the judge announced that the trial was adjourned for the day.
Before the jury was dismissed, Bicker stood, his knuckles rapping against the desk, his voice clear as a bell. ‘I would like to take your Lordship’s opinion on a pressing issue.’
The shuffling of feet on floorboards and backsides on chairs ceased at once. The judge gazed at Bicker as though he were pigeon shit fouling his scarlet and ermine lapels.
‘The prisoner — a man who is entirely unable to walk without a full leg brace and a crutch — is being made to climb four steep flights of stairs to reach his cell which is located on the top floor, although several cells on the ground floor are unoccupied. He has received threats to his life from fellow prisoners — murderers whom he helped convict while faithfully serving the Crown. Yet no action has been taken against those men. Furthermore, he was not allowed to see his private detective, who is probably the only person left bothering to identify the real perpetrator after the Grand Jury was in such a hurry to accept a bill of indictment. Were I not as familiar with our judicial system as I am, I believe I would assume that it is desired the prisoner not attend his own trial upright and alive.’
‘Mr Bicker!’ The gavel hit the dais with force, and all newspaper reporters scribbled away frantically. ‘Are you insinuating that justice is not being served? In my own court room?’ the judge thundered, his cheeks a deep raspberry-red.
‘On the contrary, my Lord. Justice doesn’t seem to be served as soon as the prisoner leaves your court room.’
The judge’s head snapped to the magistrates. His jaw muscles were rippling, his moustache stood on end. He narrowed his gaze back at Bicker and growled, ‘The prisoner is to be moved to a cell on the ground floor. At once! A warden is to be placed at his door at all times, and every man who has dared threaten the prisoner’s life is to be punished.’
The gavel clonked against wood.
Bicker raised an eyebrow and cleared his throat.
‘As to the private detective,’ the judge added sharply. ‘What is his name?’
‘Olivia Sévère,’ Bicker answered calmly.
The newspaper reporters froze with their pencils mid-air, their eyes darting between the attorney for the defence and Justice Hawkins, and upon a seemingly invisible sign, they all resumed scribbling like whirlwinds.
‘Are you jesting?’ The judge’s face grew a shade darker.
‘I am not. Mrs Olivia Sévère assisted the Coroner of Eastern Middlesex for months, until he was arrested. She has experience in interrogating witnesses, seeking evidence, and building a case. She has now established a registered detective agency, and is perfectly able to investigate this case. In fact, she is already doing so. Quite capably, I should add.’
The judge puffed up his cheeks, narrowed his gaze on Olivia, and grunted, ‘And this is the prisoner’s wish?’
‘It is,’ Sévère said.
Olivia couldn’t command her mouth to operate.
‘The prisoner is permitted to see his private detective, Mrs Olivia Sévère, in his cell.’ A clonk, and the judge left the dais.
Rose unwrapped a candy. Alf had just sneaked away to wring his snake as he dubbed it. It was probably a maggot he wrung. Or a pimple.
S
he wondered if the candy would be raspberry or strawberry? It was red, so it could be either. Or maybe blackberry? She popped it into her mouth. Sour and sweet. Rhubarb, then.
She spotted Alf slouching by a corner shop. He was approached by a stranger, and they began to talk. Alf pushed his hands into his trouser pockets, chin high, cap askew. Pursing his lips, he shook his head at the young man who now stepped closer, crowding him with his height and bulk. The stranger lifted a fist and sniffed it theatrically, then said something that made Alf extract his own fists from his pockets and clench them at his side.
Rose sauntered over to them and said in a low voice, ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’
‘Shut ya trap,’ the young man said, and looked her up and down — her filthy torn shirt, the countless patches on her trousers, her dirt-rimmed nails and wrists — and added, ‘Bum raisin.’
Then he turned his attention back to Alf. ‘Ya owe me a shilling. I get me money now, or I take a tooth. What is it?’
‘You get a shilling when I get a name, that was the deal,’ Alf said.
The fist moved closer to his right eye.
‘I really wouldn’t get so close to him what with the diseases and all,’ Rose provided cheerfully.
Now it was Alf who turned to her and said, ‘Shut your trap, bum raisin.’
‘And since when is my name bum raisin, pimple prick?’
‘Pimple prick?’ Alf blinked. ‘PIMPLE PRICK?’ Then he pounced. And missed her by an inch.
Giggling, Rose sprinted down the road, turned a corner and into an alley, another alley and yet another. She heard Alf right behind her. The second and heavier set of footfalls was fading. And fading.
When she was convinced they’d lost their tail, she stopped and positioned herself behind a lamppost in case Alf wanted to punch her. He definitely looked it when he skidded to a halt merely two steps from her. ‘Why is it always prick words? Cauliflower prick. Pimple prick. You haven’t even seen it.’
‘Are you complaining?’
Alf shut his mouth, and his gaze zeroed in on her face. ‘Is that candy you are eating?’
‘Yes it is.’ She broadened her shoulders, working her jaws for emphasis. ‘And it’s not honourable to steal candy from someone who just saved your life.’
Alf snorted — probably to hide his embarrassment — and turned away. ‘We have work to do.’
Just as they turned onto Sillwood Street, Mrs Johnston stepped off the stairs to her house. Alf turned Rose around, so that he was facing the street and she was facing him. They pretended to discuss a topic of great importance, while Mrs Johnston manoeuvred around cabs and pedestrians to reach Mr Frank’s residence.
‘Oho!’ Alf said under his breath. ‘Mrs Johnston is visiting Mr Frank. I wonder what this is about.’
Rose groaned and shook her head. Alf was a lost cause when it came to spy language. He kept forgetting that Mrs Johnston was the finch, Mrs Appleton was the donkey, and Mr Frank was—
A sharp jab rang through her ribcage. ‘Ow!’ Glaring at Alf, she massaged her side.
‘I didn’t elbow you that hard,’ Alf grumbled. Then he nodded toward Mr Frank’s house. ‘Two windows are open. We should try to eavesdrop.’
Casually, they walked over to the white-washed house and leant against the metal fence, hands in pockets, eyes trailing over passers-by, ears pricked. But the clopping of horseshoes, the rattling of wheels, and chattering of people made it impossible to hear what Mrs Johnston was saying to Mr Frank, or if she said anything at all.
So they waited.
A costermonger’s cart approached slowly, pulled by a tired mule. The animal held its head low, froth was oozing from the bit.
‘Ice cream,’ Rose whispered. ‘He has ice cream.’
Alf shushed her. A short moment later, his stomach yowled, and Rose smiled at him with triumph in her face. ‘What will you give me if I buy you a scoop?’
Alf ground his teeth and looked up at the dark blue sky.
‘You can have one if you swear you will never again put anything in my food. No tadpoles, no earth worms, no—’
‘Turds?’ he said with a smirk.
‘What?’ she squeaked and instantly felt sick. ‘Disgusting, horrible pig!’ she hissed.
‘What? No prick word?’
She pushed off the fence, approached the costermonger, and paid for a scoop of ice cream on a waffle. Grinning, she turned to face Alf, stuck out her tongue and lavishly ran it across her treasure. She grunted with satisfaction and slowly walked back to him.
He ignored her as she leant against the fence, saying, ‘Hmmmm,’ and ‘Ohhhh,’ and ate her ice cream with utmost focus.
And then he reached out and mashed the entire thing into her face.
Stunned into silence, she picked waffle shrapnel off her cheeks, and used her whole hand to scrape all the ice cream off her face and into her mouth. But much had already dripped to the pavement. ‘I hope your prick rots off. And your balls.’
He shot her a warning glare.
From behind them, sounds rose. The opening of a door and a shuffling of feet. And then, Mr Frank’s voice. ‘Have a nice evening, Mrs Johnston.’ He sounded a bit stiff to Rose’s ear, but then most adults spoke as if they had a fork shoved up their bum.
‘We will see,’ was Mrs Johnston’s icy reply.
There was brief moment of silence before Mr Frank called out, ‘Get away from my fence, you two!’
Graveyard
Olivia presented her papers to the officer who received her at the gates of Newgate prison. The man nodded and walked her through a lodge, then headed in the wrong direction.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, motioning the other way. ‘But I’m to visit Mr Gavriel Sévère.’
He spat on the walkway and muttered, ‘Prisoner had been moved.’
How efficient, she thought.
They turned into a yard and stopped at a thick iron gate. A turnkey admitted them, and they went deep into a maze of corridors guarded by armed men, gates, gratings, and more iron-banded doors. When they reached yet another ward, cold sweat began to trickle down Olivia’s spine.
The officer opened the door for her and said with a smile that didn’t touch his eyes, ‘The condemned ward.’
Olivia’s jaw felt as though it had come off its hinges. ‘Newgate has a capacity for nearly two hundred prisoners, and my husband was put in the condemned ward?’ Her voice sounded too shrill in her ears.
The officer merely shrugged. ‘Far as I know, he asked for it.’ Then he jerked his head, motioning her to step through.
She entered the damp corridor. Her ribcage grew tighter with every gulp of foul air she sucked into her lungs. Several oil lamps vomited unsteady light onto the flagstones, turning the slime inhabiting the cracks into a living, writhing thing. At the far end loomed a narrow staircase. Everyone knew it led to the Graveyard — a place of utter desolation where hanged murderers were buried beneath thick slabs of stone.
An armed guard stood in front of each of the twenty-four cells — mere holes in the walls, secured with gratings, locks, and iron bands. The pitiful homes of men whose only future lay in meeting their maker at the end of a rope.
‘For the coroner,’ the officer said to no one in particular, then stepped back through the door and shut it with a loud clank. The noise bounced off the walls.
Olivia knew hell. She’d lived it. But this — this was hell and bottomless despair, decay, and death all at once. She rolled her tongue around in her dry mouth, trying to swallow.
A guard asked for her papers, and she held them out to him. He read them twice, turning them over, and over again. And finally, he unlocked a cell.
Bracing herself, she entered. The door closed behind her — a sharp, unforgiving noise. Like a gunshot.
‘Welcome to my new lodgings, dear wife,’ Sévère said. ‘Please excuse that I remain seated.’
Her eyes adjusted to the gloom, but the rest of her body didn’t. Her breath came in short bu
rsts, her knees clacked together. ‘Why… Why here?’
‘I needed better protection and this place certainly has it. Courtesy of the Chief Magistrate.’
Sévère sat awkwardly in a small hammock that was fastened to iron rings on both sides of the cell. The floor, the walls, all was wet and grimy.
‘It’s so cold,’ was all she managed to say.
‘Nothing we can do about that now. Tell me news about our case.’
She blinked, motioning at his canvas bed. ‘Can you even sleep on this contraption? And is the unguent helping at all?’
‘The unguent was confiscated when they moved me down here.’ Sévère made a half-hearted wave at his small, windowless enclosure. ‘And I’m quite happy with the hammock. The alternative would be to sleep in a puddle of…well, whatever it is that has trickled all the way down here.’
She bit her tongue, yanked up her skirts, slipped her fingers into her stockings, and pulled out the jar she’d purchased the previous day. ‘I had an inkling you might be needing more of this.’
Sévère stared at her outstretched hand and said, ‘You are an angel.’
He scooted to the edge of the hammock, unstrapped his brace, took it off, and placed it next to him. His fingers stopped at his trouser buttons, his gaze flicked to Olivia.
She turned around to give him privacy. Her eyes followed a drop of water as it crawled down the wall, whitish grease in its wake. She heard the rustling of fabric, the soft clink of the jar being uncapped, and a small, happy grunt as Sévère rubbed the unguent onto his bad leg.
‘You can turn around now,’ he said a little later.
As he strapped his brace back on, Olivia bent forward, dipped her finger into the unguent, and spread it onto her palm. ‘So this is the murder weapon.’
‘Apparently.’
‘It tingles,’ she observed.
‘In a few moments it will begin to prickle and burn.’
‘How odd.’ She gazed at her hand for a moment, wondering how much of the unguent one needed to swallow in order to die. ‘I purchased the unguent yesterday under a false name from an assistant at Walker’s. He didn’t ask for my papers. Whoever bought this poison to kill Johnston probably hasn’t used his real name. Or hers. It’s easy.’