by Deryn Lake
Pest House Row, as John and Samuel saw when they turned into the lane that ran between Old Street and Islington, stood, an untidy jumble of straggling houses, the sole reminder of the place in which the City Pest House had once been situated. Built in the last few years of the sixteenth century by money raised from companies interested in Sir Walter Raleigh’s adventure at sea, namely his piratical exploits plundering Spanish galleons, the House had been erected ‘as a lazaretto for the reception of distressed and miserable objects infected by the dreadful plague’. Having taken in many patients at the time of epidemic, principally those poor wretches who were homeless, moneyless and friendless and who regarded the Pest House with hatred and horror, the building had finally fallen into disrepair in the early part of the eighteenth century and, in 1736, had been sold to the French Hospital, the governing body of which knocked down what was left and erected new buildings on the site.
‘Do you reckon there’s a burial pit anywhere round here?’ said Samuel, staring at the rise and fall of the land behind the cottages.
John shook his head. ‘No, the poor bastards were all thrown in at Mount Mill, weren’t they?’
Samuel looked vague. ‘I’m not certain. Where is Mount Mill?’
‘Just off Goswell Street, near Peartree Street. Supposedly there are hundreds of plague victims buried there.’
‘Hurled into the ground with scant ceremony, just a few hastily mumbled prayers. Frightening thought.’
The Apothecary gave a cynical smile. ‘One could say the same for Hannah Rankin.’
Samuel shivered. ‘Don’t! A goose walked over my grave when you spoke those words. Are you going to knock on doors in Ratcliff Row to find where she lived?’
‘In a moment or two. First of all I want to get the lie of the land.’
They had been walking as they talked and now found themselves standing outside the French Hospital, a gracious and beautiful building erected round three sides of a quadrangle. Funds for the project had been provided by a French Huguenot, James de Gastigny, Master of the Buckhounds to King William III. Though it had originally been intended that the Hospital should be a place of refuge for ‘Poor French Protestants and Their Descendants Residing in Great Britain’, the asylum also had its share of aged and infirm people, providing them with a permanent home. But for the rest of the Huguenots it was a place of sanctuary, a shelter where they could find friendly advice in determining their future plans. The Hospital also acted as an agency for locating other French immigrants who had already settled elsewhere in London. As he walked past the entrance, John thought what an excellent place it would be to cloak the activities of a French spy ring.
Directly opposite the Hospital, on the other side of the lane, stood the rear of the complex that housed the Peerless Pool and the Fish Pond, together with the other buildings belonging to the Pleasure Garden, including Mr Kemp’s grand dwelling place. There was the back way in, the Apothecary noticed: a gated entrance leading off Pest House Row. Would it have been possible, he wondered, for someone to have come through that gate and stealthily make their way to the Fish Pond, hidden by the cover of the trees? Certain that at night it would have been all too easy, he put his hand out to give the gate a push, only to find that today it was locked.
‘Interesting,’ he said to Samuel.
‘What?’
‘If the gate is as secure as this at night, as Mr Kemp assures us it is, it means if the body were taken to the Fish Pond this way, the murderer either had a key or …’
‘Was let in by an accomplice on the inside, as you suggested.’
‘Exactly. Now listen to this.’ And the Apothecary repeated to his friend the thought that had struck him after they had last parted company.
‘’Zounds!’ Samuel’s jolly eyes lit up. ‘Have you told Mr Fielding?’
‘Nicholas went round with a note containing the information early this morning. It should have reached the Beak before he set off for the Peerless Pool.’
The Goldsmith looked eager. ‘Shall we present our compliments to him before he leaves?’
‘By all means. But first let us find the lodging house of the late Hannah Rankin and see what information, if any, that yields up.’
On closer examination it was easy to see that the cottages of Ratcliff Row, which was situated a quarter of a mile further up the lane, directly opposite the fields and a path leading to Mr Kemp’s house and the Pleasure Garden, had been rebuilt at the same time as the Cripplegate or God’s Gift Almshouses. These had been founded by Edward Alleyn, the well-known actor and joint owner of the Fortune Theatre in Playhouse Yard. Originally put up in 1620, the almshouses had been modernised exactly one hundred years later. Each was one-storeyed, with a red-tiled roof, shuttered windows and a green front door that opened directly on to the street. The houses where Hannah had lived were similarly designed, except that their front doors were a bold, if somewhat weathered, blue. Jauntily approaching the first one, John raised the knocker.
Even before it descended, a woman appeared. ‘Yes?’ she said beadily.
John assumed his urbane expression. ‘I am seeking the whereabouts of a Hannah Rankin. Would you be able to help me at all? Do you know where she lives?’
‘I might,’ the woman answered, narrowing eyes that had not been large to start with.
‘So what must I do to obtain your assistance?’ the Apothecary replied charmingly.
‘State your business,’ she retorted. ‘That’s what, young Sir.’
John conjectured possibilities, smiling the meanwhile. If he announced that he was conducting affairs on behalf of John Fielding, then he would have authority but little cooperation. If, on the other hand, he fabricated a feasible story, he might get a great deal further. His smile broadened and he bowed.
‘Mistress Rankin and I are distant cousins. I was hoping that I might pay my respects to her now that I am in town.’
The mean eyes glinted. ‘You don’t look like no cousin to me. She’s a rough thing, is Hannah.’
‘So you do know her?’
‘There’s not many come and go in this row that I don’t.’
Samuel entered the discussion with his usual disastrous approach. ‘I’ll wager there’s not much goes on here that you miss, Ma’am.’
He laughed heartily and looked affable but the woman curled her lip. ‘Are you saying that I am a busybody?’
Samuel began to bluster. ‘Gracious me, no. Merely a lady with sharp eyes who notices what her neighbours do.’
The woman made to slam the door shut but John stepped in to retrieve the situation. ‘Madam, as you correctly observed, I am not Hannah Rankin’s cousin. However, I do represent the hospital of St Luke’s, and the fact of the matter is that Hannah did not appear for work today, nor has she been seen there since the day before yesterday. I wondered, therefore, if you could tell me at which cottage she resides so that I might ask her landlord for information.’
‘Two doors down from me she lives, with one Mother Hamp, who takes in lodgers being as she is a widow woman.’ She drew in breath. ‘So Hannah’s disappeared, has she? I thought she’d been keeping strange company of late.’
The Apothecary raised a lively brow. ‘Really? Who, for example?’
‘A Frenchie from the Hospital, for a start. A right sly old fox he looks with his powder and patches. Then there was the coachman, a hulking big fellow. I wondered what she could be doing with such a pair of suitors.
‘You think they were that?’
‘Well, what else could they be, calling on a woman alone?’
‘Business connections?’ said John, doubtfully.
Samuel snorted. ‘Hardly, I should have thought.’
Hannah’s neighbour nodded. ‘Who could be doing business with a warder from the lunatic asylum? Unless it was something shady, of course.’
‘Perhaps that’s the answer.’ The Apothecary looked thoughtful. ‘Perhaps Hannah was involved in some rum doings.’
The neighbour�
�s ear for gossip was certainly acute: for she put her head on one side and said, ‘Was?’
Furious with himself for making such a crass mistake, John answered, ‘A figure of speech, that is all.’
But the woman did not seem altogether convinced for she watched the two friends closely as they went to the cottage where Hannah had lived, having politely thanked her for her help.
‘Do you think she believed me?’ John muttered.
‘No,’ Samuel whispered in reply.
‘The rumour of her possible death will soon be down the entire row.’
‘It’s already started.’
And John saw out of the corner of his eye that the neighbour had gone to the house next door where she had been joined by another, very similar to herself, and that the pair of them were looking their way. Partly because of this, the Apothecary decided he must persuade Mother Hamp to let them in immediately and not stand talking on the doorstep, even if this meant revealing the true nature of his enquiry. Accordingly, when a greasy, grey-haired harridan of a great many years and exceedingly few teeth answered his summons, John, speaking in a low voice, said, ‘Madam, I urgently require you to let my companion and me into your house. We are here on the official business of Mr John Fielding of Bow Street.’
His plan was instantly thwarted by the crone cupping her ear and saying, ‘What? Speak up, young fellow. Can’t hear a word.’
Horribly aware of the grin spreading over Samuel’s jocund features, John leant close, his nose wrinkling at the terrible stink emanating from the hag’s apparel and person, and repeated the message.
‘Bow Street?’ she bawled in reply. ‘What have I got to do with Bow Street?’
‘Nothing,’ he thundered. ‘Go inside.’ And seizing her skinny elbow, the Apothecary hurried Mother Hamp within doors. He turned to his companion. ‘If those two besoms come knocking the door, send them away with a nit in their ear.’
‘To add to the others already there,’ Samuel answered, and chortled.
Away from the street and in her own grim surroundings, Mother Hamp became somewhat more amenable and produced a bottle of gin from the depths of her rags, wiping the neck with her sleeve and offering it around. John gingerly took a swig to show there was no ill feeling. Samuel turned pale but did likewise.
‘Now what’s all this about, boys?’ she asked, having taken a deep draught herself.
Briskly, and with a certain amount of authority, John explained, omitting the fact that Hannah Rankin’s body had been found.
‘So she’s disappeared, has she?’ Mother Hamp asked, echoing the neighbour’s words. ‘Can’t say I’m surprised.’
‘Why is that?’
The harridan downed a half-pint of gin. ‘’Cos she had no past, that’s why.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She never spoke of family, friends, places where she used to live, nuffink. She seemed to come from nowhere and know no one.’
‘What about the two men who called on her; the Frenchman and the coachman? She must have known them.’
Mother Hamp flashed her gums in a silent guffaw. ‘I wouldn’t have called them friends exactly. She was afraid of them, I reckon. That Frenchie, with his white face and black beauty spots, he had some hold on her. She used to see him in her room and talk to him all meek and mild, not like the way she screams at them lunatics.’
‘How do you know that’s the way she treats the patients at St Luke’s?’
‘’Cos I sometimes do shifts there, when Mother Richard is away delivering a child.’
John shuddered at the very thought. ‘Go on.’
‘As for the coachman, she lived in mortal dread of him. He only came here twice but each time she trembled and wept. And one day when she’d had a bottle of spirit, Hannah told me that she might have to run for her life if he came again.’
‘Hare and hounds!’ exclaimed Samuel from the corner. ‘There’s a clue, John!’
‘Indeed. Tell me, how did you know this man was a coachman? Was it merely from the way he was dressed?’
Mother Hamp let out another soundless, toothless laugh. ‘No. It was on account of his conveyance standing outside my front door.’
The Apothecary gazed at her. ‘He drove a coach here! Was it a hackney?’
‘No, bless you, it was a gentleman’s carriage. It even had a coat of arms on the door.’
‘And this man was up on the box, not inside?’
‘He was on the box with the reins in his hands.’
‘He was definitely a coachman,’ said Samuel, sniggering at John.
The Apothecary shot him a black look. ‘Would it be possible, Madam, to look at Hannah Rankin’s room? There might be something there which could tell us more about why she disappeared.’
‘It’s up the stairs on the left,’ Mother Hamp answered, and fell to consuming the gin in earnest.
It was quite extraordinary. Exactly as if Hannah had actually left home for good on the night she was murdered. No clothes hung in the ancient clothes press and there were no shawls or stockings in the drawers. Nor was there any sign of baggage. It looked just as if Hannah had packed up, taken her belongings with her, and in this state gone to her death.
‘She must have planned to go away with her killer,’ said Samuel, staring around him at the deserted chamber.
‘Not necessarily. If the Frenchman or the coachman, or both, were menacing her, perhaps she ran away.’
‘But not far enough.’
‘Precisely.’
‘I wonder what she had done in the past to have two such sinister characters on her trail.’
‘And to merit such a terrible beating. For someone exacted a terrible revenge when they thrashed Hannah within an inch of her life, then threw her into the water alive to drown.’
For no reason an image of the beautiful Petronelle came into John’s mind, together with the final words she had said to him. Under his breath he muttered them. ‘I’ll always remember her and the way she came for me.’
Samuel overheard him. ‘There’s darkness in this case, isn’t there, John?’ he asked fearfully.
‘Darkness – and a great evil,’ the Apothecary answered slowly.
There had been much activity at the Peerless Pool that morning. As arranged, the Principal Magistrate, John Fielding, accompanied by Joe Jago, had arrived by coach shortly after eight o’clock, having risen and breakfasted early. Once on the premises, he had gone to the Fish Pond and allowed Jago to describe the scene for him as it appeared in full sunlight, then report on what the team of Runners searching the grounds had so far unearthed. After that, the Blind Beak had set up a room in Mr Kemp’s house and started to question those who had been present not only on the day when the body had been found but also at the Pleasure Garden during the previous day and evening.
An account of the Peerless Pool’s routine had emerged from those examined. The Garden shut every evening at sunset, a bell being rung half an hour beforehand in order to warn bathers and those taking refreshment or in the bowling alley that closing time was drawing near. Then, when all the patrons had finally gone, the waiters would go around locking the gates for the night.
‘I believe there are two ways into the Peerless Pool,’ Mr Fielding had said, sitting back in his chair, apparently negligent, the bandage that covered his eyes this day giving the impression that he was resting.
‘Yes, Sir,’ the waiter being questioned had answered. ‘One leading off Old Street, through which subscribers are admitted. The other a small gate going off Pest House Row, almost opposite the French Hospital. It leads to the west comer of the Fish Pond.’
‘And what is the purpose of that?’
‘It allows the dedicated anglers, those with a season ticket, to go straight to the Pond without having to walk through the rest of the Garden.’
Mr Fielding had nodded. ‘I presume there is someone on daily duty there?’
‘Oh yes, Sir.’
There had been silence, and then Joe
Jago had asked a question, his ragged features harsh in the early morning light.
‘But surely there is a third way in. Did I not spy a gate leading from the back of this property to a path going across the fields in the direction of Islington?’
‘Yes, Sir. You did, Sir.’
‘And is this, too, locked at night?’
‘So I would imagine, though that is the duty of Mr Kemp’s household servants, not the waiters.’
The Magistrate had fingered the curls of his long, flowing wig, a magnificent creation in its way, though nothing like as fine as that worn by Sir Gabriel Kent.
‘So it seems there are three entrances by which the body could have come in, Joe.’
‘It looks like it, Sir.’
‘Though only of use to someone with a key or a friend on the inside of the Garden.’
‘So it would appear.’
‘Did you see the letter that Mr Rawlings sent me this morning? Nick Dawkins read it to me but I left it on my desk for you to peruse.’
‘The one in which he …’
But Joe got no further. There was a polite tap on the door and the very person under discussion came walking in. John and Samuel had finished their morning’s investigations and had arrived to compare notes with the finest brain in London.
As comprehensively as he could, the Apothecary described all that had taken place, especially dwelling on the extraordinarily empty state of Hannah Rankin’s room. Mr Fielding nodded occasionally but deliberately asked no questions until John had finished speaking. Then he said, ‘Tell me, was Mother Hamp sober enough to be questioned before you left?’
‘Just about.’
‘Did you ask her if Hannah had given notice of quitting?’
‘I did, but she replied no. I then enquired when she had last seen the victim and she said early on the evening of the night before last.’
‘Did she state in what circumstances?’
‘Yes. Apparently Hannah went out with a bundle in her hand. Mother Hamp asked her what it was and she said it was some old clothes that she was taking up to the Hospital for Poor Lunatics and that she was on her way there immediately. However, the old besom did not believe her.’