‘He would have read it in the papers, Bliss, as will anyone else who takes the slightest interest.’
‘In the papers, sir? But how would such a thing come to be known?’
‘The police surgeon examined the remains, and he will give out his findings at the inquest, where the gallery will be near to bursting with newspapermen waiting to take them down. The Times will use the Latin words, but the rest will choose their own. No, Bliss, there are a great many faults to be found with this flight of fancy, but that is not one of them. Whatever her fears and whatever her reasons, Miss Tull intended her bit of needlework to come before the public, and so it will in due course. Now, listen to me, like a good man. You have gone a long way on very little steam, but now you must give your engine a rest. I will not be given much leeway in looking into the Strythe House matter, and I mean to try the more usual methods first.’
The inspector drained his glass of cordial. Scooping out his watch, he glanced in the direction of the passageway.
Gideon gave a small cough. ‘Forgive me, Inspector, but I am not sure I have understood you. Do you mean to extend your investigation to the events I described at St Anne’s Church?’
Cutter appeared distracted. ‘I have not yet spoken my mind on that point, Bliss. I will give it due consideration.’
‘But we must act quickly, sir, if we are to act at all. Almost a whole day has passed since Miss Tatton was last seen. She and my uncle may be in the gravest danger. We cannot simply leave them to their fates.’
The inspector only frowned at his watch, giving no sign that he had heard. Crossing with a vexed air to the doorway, he peered out into the passageway. At length he appeared to catch sight of someone.
‘Fox!’ he called out. ‘There you are, Fox. Good man, good man. I had nearly given you up for lost. Come in for a moment while we make ready to leave.’ He ushered in a sad-eyed fellow with a wilting moustache, clapping him on the shoulder and steering him to the fireplace. ‘This specimen here – get up out of that armchair, Bliss, and show a bit of smartness – this specimen here is to serve as my sergeant until better can be found. Bliss, this is Inspector Fox of J Division.’
Gideon leapt upright. ‘Delighted, Inspector,’ he said. ‘I beg your pardon if I seemed discourteous. I’m afraid I’ve been rather unwell.’
Fox thumbed one nostril closed and then the other, snuffling back the contents of each as he did so. He hawked the resulting matter into the coky fire, where it gave out a viscous sizzle. ‘Where’d you pick that one up?’ he said, turning to Cutter. ‘Stage door, was it?’
Cutter ignored this, reaching for his overcoat and hauling it on. ‘Fox has been good enough to look into the late Miss Tull, Bliss. He has turned up her lodgings on his patch, down Bethnal Green way. She lived there with a sister of hers who might have a good deal to tell us. You may take a note of that, Bliss, in your new book. That is a bit of real police work for you.’
Gideon reached for his notebook, but realised as he did so that the inspector’s observation was rhetorical. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘That is a valuable piece of intelligence, of course. But if I may, sir – surely we might have got it from Mr Carew at Strythe House without troubling Inspector Fox?’
Cutter exchanged a look with Fox, who applied his tongue to his teeth and expressed a thin whistle. Inspector Cutter leaned towards Gideon and clasped his shoulder. ‘We might have done so, Bliss. We might indeed. And then Mr Carew might have passed word of it to whatever wig represents His Lordship’s interests, and before I knew it I might have found myself hauled in to the Yard to give an account of myself.’
‘Of course, sir,’ Gideon said quietly. ‘I shall endeavour to be of use, in any case.’
Inspector Fox stared at him for a moment, then shook his head with some force, as if to clear his ears of an obstruction. ‘Best be off, then,’ he said. ‘One of my lads is out in the wagon with a loon that done a runner on us. Picked up outside the Palace, he was, bollock naked and threatening an anarchist revolt.’
Fox slouched after Cutter, who had marched already to the door. ‘You ever wrestle a naked anarchist to the ground, Priss?’ he said, glancing over his shoulder.
‘Bliss, sir. And no, I cannot say that I have.’
‘No?’ Fox smoothed down the limp extremities of his moustache. ‘Well then, this might just be your lucky night.’
XI
Notes made by G. Bliss (Sgt.), attending residence at 23 Charlotte-street, Bethnal Green, together with Insp. Cutter (CID) and Insp. Fox (J Division).
Boarded a police carriage in the command of Insp. Fox in Warwick-street, in which vehicle we encountered Sgt. Knowles, who was endeavouring to restrain an unclothed lunatic.
On entering the carriage, Insp. Cutter gave assistance to Sgt. Knowles, and was obliged to administer a [stricken out] to the suspect’s [stricken out]. The prisoner quietened considerably, and was covered to the point of decency with a feed bag.
7.10 p.m. Arrived at Bethnal Green police station, where the lunatic was with some difficulty removed.
7.38 p.m. Arrived at Charlotte-street.
Insp. Fox observed that the dwellings in the street were weavers’ cottages, these being characterised by a large window set into the upper storey so as to admit the abundant light called for by that profession.
Upon presenting ourselves at No. 23, it was found that no one could be brought to the door, though Insp. Cutter knocked with considerable energy for two minutes or more.
A woman emerged from a neighbouring dwelling in a state of some agitation, and demanded to know the cause of the racket. When the officers present identified themselves, said woman’s demeanour became coarse and unwelcoming and officers were invited after a brief exchange to ‘fuck off out of it’ [sic].
Insp. Cutter directed the woman to disclose her name, which she gave as Mrs Kiss-My-Arse [sic], whereupon Insp. Cutter announced that he would search her dwelling and would leave it looking like a [stricken out]. The neighbour was induced to give her name as (Mrs) Ginnie Reston.
Mrs Reston was questioned as to the whereabouts and habits of the occupants of No. 23. She identified these as Miss Esther Tull and Mrs Mamie Hanley, the latter being the elder sister of the former and widowed a good twenty years.
Mrs Reston further volunteered that the elder sister had been for some years ‘laid up’. Mrs Hanley was dependent upon the care of Miss Tull, who put it about that she worked as a seamstress, while keeping the hours (this being Mrs Reston’s own private view) of a tart. In the light of the foregoing, she suggested that the officers present return in the morning. Mrs Reston was then directed to return indoors, and was advised that her views on the conduct of the present investigation would be sought if they were wanted, this eventuality being understood to be unlikely.
The officers present then conferred for a time on the necessity of seeking a warrant if a forced entry were to be made to Miss Tull’s former home. Insp. Cutter and Insp. Fox then stood apart and spoke privately.
This discussion being concluded, the inspectors asked the present officer if he had heard a scream coming from within the dwelling. The present officer expressed uncertainty, but following a period of reflection concurred with the view that an exclamation of distress had indeed been heard.
Insp. Fox then produced a suitable implement from the carriage, and immediate entry was effected in the interests of safety. Insp. Cutter gave out a loud announcement and called on any person concealed within to show himself. When no answer came a lamp was brought from the carriage and the officers began to look about the lower rooms.
The parlour and kitchen were both found to be empty and unheated. The grate was quite cold. Both rooms were in a state of considerable disarray, with pots and pans, items of crockery, &c. having been scattered from their places, and a good deal of breakage was observed. The larder had been emptied out and provisions were likewise found to be strewn about the floor.
All present then made their way above stairs, enter
ing first the room whose large arched window had been observed from without. A bedstead and nightstand occupied one corner, but the greater part was in use as a workroom. Garments in varying states of completion were hung neatly upon a rail, but others had been cast about the room. Items of piecework had likewise been swept from a bench, but some had been left untouched and were carefully ordered still. A scrap of butcher’s paper was pinned to each, showing the particulars of the commission in a neat hand.
A Singer sewing machine had been upset, and was found lying on its side. Insp. Fox examined it and pronounced it undamaged. It was a handsome article, he said, and one that spoke well of Miss Tull’s skills, since it was by no means cheap. Insp. Fox explained that his own wife takes in needlework to supplement their living, but does not profit enough by it in a whole year to make such an investment.
The covers had been torn from the bed in the corner, and its mattress had been hauled aside. A nightstand had been overturned, and near it a Bible and one other book were found, which the present officer was moved to examine. The Bible was found to be unremarkable, but the other volume – an annotated edition of the Book of Common Prayer – was taken into evidence for later examination.
Insp. Cutter took a wastebasket from beneath the workbench, and removed from it a quantity of oddments. An opium bottle was recovered, but its label had been scoured away and the dispenser could not be identified. Also found were wads of gauze, saturated in varying degrees with blood.
The officers present went next to a room of modest proportions at the rear of the house. Like the other parts of the dwelling, this room was observed to be in a disordered state, and a woman was found on a bed there who could not be roused by any means. A window had been left open, and the room was inhospitably cold. Insp. Fox was for shutting it at once, being susceptible to pleurisy, but Insp. Cutter advised against it on the grounds that evidence might be disturbed.
Insp. Fox brought his carriage lamp to the bed, where the woman lay supine, and Insp. Cutter made a brief examination of her person. Finding no pulse, he desired Insp. Fox to fetch Dr Carmody in his carriage.
Insp. Fox expressed some dissatisfaction at this request, noting that he had gone out of his way as it was. He took the view that J Division need render no further assistance in the matter of ‘some old dear who got herself smothered by a burglar’, and that the police surgeon should not be troubled.
Insp. Cutter took a moment to confer with Insp. Fox at the head of the stairs. A discussion took place, during which Insp. Cutter [stricken out] and a good deal of [stricken out] was heard. The matter was resolved to the satisfaction of both parties.
When Insp. Fox had taken his leave, Insp. Cutter directed the present officer to document the scene as faithfully as he might, since the expense of engaging a photographer would not be countenanced by the Yard in the present circumstances. The following observations were made between 8.06 p.m. and 9.03 p.m., when Dr Carmody arrived to begin his examination.
The wrought iron bedstead had been dragged from the wall and left at an irregular angle. A number of boxes kept beneath it had been opened or tipped over. The nightstand had been upset and a chest forced open, with items of clothing and bed linen from same left heaped on the floor.
A window pane had been smashed from the outside, leaving a qty. of glass scattered about the floor, and the lower sash had been raised to a height sufficient for a man to enter. The roof of an outhouse in the yard below was seen to offer a route by which an intruder might have gained access to the upper storey.
A sheet that had covered the remains of the deceased was drawn back, though they were not otherwise disturbed pending the surgeon’s arrival. The lady’s night attire did not appear to have been disturbed. She had been clutching at the bedclothes prior to her death, but her posture was otherwise unremarkable and the inspector noted that there were no obvious signs of struggle.
On closer inspection, the skin of the woman’s face was found to be discoloured to a striking degree. The mouth was fixedly open, and the lips were contorted as if they had been arrested in the midst of some urgent utterance. The eyes were protuberant and markedly bloodshot. They remained open and staring, as if fixed on some lingering apparition that was visible only to the dead.
XII
Octavia made the journey to Whitechapel by cab, since the weather had worsened and Georgie had no bicycle of his own. He had often offered to accompany her when she went out in the evenings, and until now she had always declined, but she could hardly refuse him when he had gone to such trouble on her account.
‘I will keep out of your way, sister,’ he said, by way of a concession. ‘You will hardly know I am about. But it makes me easier in mind, I must say, for there is no telling who might have had a hand in such a thing, and who might be about the place yet.’
In fact she was content to have him with her. The day had left her oddly dispirited, and Georgie’s natural diffidence made him an undemanding companion, even when she herself was distracted and silent. The carriage was musty and cramped, and their progress seemed intolerably slow. In Whitechapel High-street, a brewer’s dray had pitched over, drawing a crowd that blocked the way, and when they had stood for nearly ten minutes without so much as turning a wheel, Octavia could bear the confinement no longer.
‘We will do as well by walking, Georgie,’ she said, gathering her belongings. ‘We might be sitting here for an hour at this rate.’
He followed her without protest, pausing only to pay the driver for his trouble, but ventured to suggest, as they turned into Osborn-street, that they might keep by the shopfronts on the better-lit side. ‘Not to tell you your business, sister, which I keep from as much as I can, but we are not in Mayfair now. There are streets hereabouts I would not wander into even with half a ship’s company at my back.’
They were watched, as they passed, from the shadows beneath the stained awnings. A few men whistled, or let out coarse exclamations. Georgie kept close to her, and she noticed the ease with which he carried his bulk. He did not strut or puff himself out, but there was no trace now of the shambling and clumsy youth he had been.
They passed the gates of an iron foundry, where a sparrow was snared in a rut of cooling pitch. A small boy stooped to seize it, trapping its panicked wings and tearing it from its legs. Georgie lunged at him, moved to an unaccustomed fury, but Octavia took hold of his elbow.
‘To harm a little bird.’ He gave a low growl of disgust. ‘A little bird, sister, not two ounces in weight. I keep myself to myself, by and large, but in Malta I laid a fellow out for trapping a plover.’
She led him away, meaning to cross the street, but at that moment a police carriage rattled from the gloom, obliging her to step back. It came close enough, as it passed, that for a moment she met the rather fearsome gaze of one of the officers within. The driver loosed his whip then, and the carriage continued at an alarming clip in the direction of Brick-lane.
‘Coppers are in a hurry,’ Georgie remarked. ‘I wonder if we’ll see them where we’re going.’
‘We ought to lodge a complaint,’ Octavia said, oddly unsettled by the policeman’s scrutiny. ‘Driving like madmen when the road is so poorly lit. They might have killed us. Which way is it, do you know? I don’t care for the man in the flat cap who is keeping abreast of us on the far side.’
They turned into Old Montague-street, and from there into a narrow thoroughfare whose name Georgie did not know, but which would allow them – or so he hoped – to cut across to Finch-street. It was a mean and filthy place, hardly more than an alley, and pools of fouled rainwater stretched in parts to almost its full width, obliging them to keep flat against the walls as they passed. It was deserted too, save for a woman in a shuttered doorway who had squatted over a blackened bucket to void herself. They heard screeching behind them as they hurried past, and as the bucket was tipped out, the rasp of iron and the lush slap of filth on the cobbles.
The boarding house stood in a narrow and lightless cour
t, reached from Finch-street by a passageway beneath the eaves of a foundry. The woman who came to the door opened it by a cautious fraction, keeping her shoulder to it as she surveyed the shadows behind them.
‘Mrs Campion?’
‘Who’s asking?’
‘Forgive me, Mrs Campion. I am Octavia Hillingdon, and this is my brother, Lieutenant George Hillingdon.’
Mrs Campion studied Georgie, disregarding Octavia’s extended hand. ‘Gentlemen ain’t admitted,’ she said.
‘Yes, of course, I do understand. That’s all right, isn’t it, Georgie? You shan’t mind waiting?’
Even when Georgie had withdrawn, touching his hat glumly and searching in his coat for a cigarette, Mrs Campion was wary. Octavia introduced herself, but made no mention of the Gazette, alluding only to an advantageous position, and to the influence of certain like-minded friends. She had heard of Miss Tatton’s disappearance, she said, and wished only to lend whatever aid she could.
‘We get all kinds of do-gooders,’ Mrs Campion said. ‘Not many of them do any good.’
‘I had thought of beginning with a donation,’ Octavia said, reaching for her reticule. ‘I have already made out the cheque. And of course, if more is needed—’
The House on Vesper Sands Page 14