by Carol Hedges
Stride and Cully exchange bemused glances.
“His name isn’t Edward MacKye?”
“Not this young man, I assure you. Samuel Johnson ... hmmm. Joined the medical school last year.”
“That fits with what we were told,” Cully murmurs. “He must be using a false name.”
“We’d like to talk to Mr Johnson, if we may,” Stride says grimly.
“Ah. That might be a problem.”
“Why?”
“The Winter term has just ended. The Summer term will not begin for another three weeks. The students are not required to attend until then.”
Stride utters an exclamation of dismay.
“Can you give us his address then?”
The Bursar shakes his head, “I’m afraid —”
“No!” Stride cries. “You are NOT afraid. You will give us the information, or I will have you arrested on a charge of obstructing a senior police officer in the pursuit of a criminal.”
Mr Featherstone gasps in horror.
“You can’t say that! You are talking to the Bursar.”
Stride rounds on him, his face ablaze.
“I don’t give a tuppenny damn if I’m talking to the bloody Archbishop of Canterbury. I will not have my inquiry impeded!”
“What I was going to say, inspector, before I was interrupted,” the Bursar resumes calmly, “was that I do not know where Mr Johnson is currently residing. Indeed, I wish I did, for he has not paid a penny in fees. I have written several letters to the address he supplied, but they have all been returned unopened. If you manage to track him down, you might remind him of this fact ... hmmm?”
****
The word serendipitous was coined in 1754 by Horace Walpole to describe a chance event that occurs in an unexpectedly happy way. Detective Sergeant Jack Cully, who has parted from Stride and his posse and is taking the scenic route back to Scotland Yard, has probably never heard either of Horace Walpole, or his verbal invention. However, he is going to experience a serendipitous event. Very shortly.
Cully steps off the main thoroughfare of Tottenham Court Road, where the lunchtime crowds of shoppers and street-sellers mill and throng in noisy abundance, and enters the anonymous footstreets of small shops and old traders.
He finds himself on familiar ground. This area of the West End is close to where the body of Violet Manning was discovered. Where Annie Smith lived her short life. The urge to take one last look at the building where Emily Benet lived proves more than he can resist.
Cully is just about to enter the side street where the shabby lodging-house is located, when he spies walking towards him a sturdy young woman in a no-nonsense bonnet and a butcher’s apron.
She is supporting a much smaller, frailer female companion who picks her way gingerly over the rutted uneven pavement. Jack Cully stops and stares, suddenly feeling the breath leave his body. Then without a moment’s hesitation he leaps forward, arms outstretched, crying,
“Emily! My God, Emily – you’re alive!”
And Emily Benet, frail and wasted but very much alive, takes one look at his radiant, overjoyed face, utters a gentle sigh, and drops down in a faint at his feet.
There is instant commotion. Somebody brings out a chair. Emily is placed gently upon it. A second chair is brought out for Cully. Somebody else brings a glass of water, a sugar bun. A dog turns up.
And in the midst of it, and utterly oblivious to the chaos erupting around them, Emily Benet and Jack Cully sit holding hands and staring at each other as if neither of them can quite believe what they are seeing.
Gradually the street empties out of everyone except Caro, who stands at a discreet distance. When only the three of them remain, Cully gently coaxes her story from Emily.
“I do not remember much of what happened after I fainted at work,” she tells him. “I was so weak from lack of food and the long hours. I am told that Caro and her husband carried me to their home and there I lay for many days.”
“She did, Mr Detective,” Caro inserts. “I fed her teaspoons of good beef tea to build up her strength.”
“As soon as I was able to sit up and hold a pen, I wrote to my parents in St Albans and they came in a hired carriage and took me straight home. And that is where I have been, regaining my health in the lovely Hertfordshire countryside.”
“But you have returned?” Cully says hopefully.
“For now,” Emily says. “There is no possibility of work for me back home. So, I have come to see what I can find here.”
“Tell him about Ma Crevice,” Caro interrupts.
Emily throws her friend a smile, shakes her head.
“Well, if you won’t, I shall,” Caro declares. “Ma Crevice’s old man died in a fire at his shop, and she has been so overcome with grief that she ain’t been seen in the sewing-room for days. So Em and I, we went to the management and suggested that we might both be reinstated as joint supervisors, because she is the best dressmaker they’ve ever had – and they know it. And I am good at organising people. We’d make a great team.”
“And what did they say?”
Caro sniffs.
“Huh! Said they’d ‘think about it.’ But we went down to the sewing-room and saw the girls, and they’re getting up a petition to say they don’t want Ma Crevice back and they do want us. And if the management don’t agree, they will walk out. So I reckon we’ll be back by next Monday.”
Cully smiles, then turns his attention back to Emily.
“Where are you living? I know you have moved out of your room.”
“I’m staying with Caro and her husband just for now,” Emily tells him. “They have kindly made me up a bed in their front room. But it is only a temporary arrangement and I hope to find a room to rent as soon as I am back on my feet.”
“You’re welcome to stay at my place for as long as you likes, and you know it,” Caro declares, tossing her head. She lowers her voice, “I’m getting as much good red meat down her as I can, Mr Detective. But I reckon running into you like this is the best tonic she could have, if you’ll pardon the liberty.”
Reluctantly Cully lets go of Emily Benet’s hands.
“I have to get back to Scotland Yard. Detective Inspector Stride will be expecting me,” he says. “But I shall return after work to call on you. If that is alright with your chaperone here?”
Caro gives him a good-natured grin.
“I ain’t no chaperone. If Em wants to see you, you are welcome. Only could you try and not look like a policeman when you arrive? Bad for business, if you know what I mean.”
She helps Emily to her feet and they set off again, Cully watching Emily Benet’s slight figure, until it passes out of sight. Then, his step lightened and his heart rejoicing, he retraces his steps. The hubbub of the crowd rises and falls, peaks and troughs all around him. He is barely aware of it. The sun is shining. The nightmare is over. For Jack Cully, it feels as if the whole world is on holiday.
****
Meanwhile, back in his office at Scotland Yard, Stride is attempting to come to terms with the latest setback. A cup of coffee, delivered hot sometime earlier, remains untouched and cooling on his desk. He was on the brink of catching him. He felt it in his bones. He was so close to success that he could almost taste it. It feels unreal, the way everything has crumbled into dust so fast that nothing can be done about it.
A carriage goes by outside the window, iron wheels tumbling, hoof beats hollow on the cobbles. Stride narrows his eyes, his mind boiled down to one thing. There are three weeks until the university term begins. In that time, how many more innocent women might be murdered?
****
Mrs Witchard’s lodger sits on his bed, his face turned towards the window. He thinks about how his time has pivoted away from him almost without him knowing it. How his life has fallen away into itself without plot or premonition.
Mainly, he thinks about the events of earlier that evening. He had been sitting in his usual seat at the foot of the dining
table, spooning up greasy soup. The rest of the lodgers were also present – except for one, who was late. Mrs Witchard did not like late, and there was an atmosphere of expectation as his key was heard in the door.
Ears straining, the lodgers listen as words are exchanged. Then the man enters the room, bringing the cold sour smell of the streets with him. He takes off his hat and sits down. His eyes swivel to the lodger. His mouth is hard and sly.
“Seen something interesting in the newspaper today, I have.”
The lodger keeps his head down, hunches over his bowl.
“Picture on the front page. Spitting image of you, old boy. Did you see it?”
The other lodgers put down their spoons and wait expectantly.
“It isn’t me.”
The words come out thick as old blood. Even he does not believe them.
“If you say so, old chap,” the man grins.
The door opens to admit Mrs Witchard carrying a bowl of soup. The two exchange a meaningful look. Then the man picks up his spoon. The room is absolutely silent, except for the slurping sound of his eating.
The lodger sets down his spoon, wincing as it cracks against the side of the bowl. He pushes himself out of his chair and leaves. As he mounts the stairs, he hears the man’s voice, loud and boastful, hears the other responding.
Now there is a knock at his door. The lodger’s heart beats like a hunted animal. His hand reaches for the brown bottle. Not bothering with the rituals of strap and syringe, he uncorks it and gulps down the entire contents.
He opens the door. A thin girl stands outside. He recognises her as the maid of all work. He has seen her lugging buckets of water up and down the area steps. She stares up at him.
“Yes?” he says.
Her voice, when it comes, is a whisper barely audible.
“You need to go.”
He steps back.
“She’s seen your pitcher. She knows who you are. Tomorrow first thing, she is going to the police. I heard them talking about it, her and the fat man. They will share the reward money between them.”
He feels the room spin, feels sweat trickling down his spine.
“Why are you telling me this?”
She shrugs. No reason.
“It wasn’t me,” he says, his voice dropping to the level of hers.
Again, the shrug. Then she is gone, leaving him alone at the open door.
He goes back inside and sits on his bed. He thinks about what he has done for love, what he has felt for it. The way the doing was bound up in the feeling, the feeling blind to whatever he has done.
It is four steps from his bed to the door. He gets up, takes one step, takes another step. He feels his whole life twisting down to this point. He is surprised it has taken so long to reach it.
Outside it is a moonlit night. But the moon, being past the full, is only now rising over the wilderness of London. Everything is still. Still in gardens and parks, still upon smoky house tops, upon high hills and highways, still upon steeples and towers, and trees with a grey ghost of bloom upon them.
He walks the commoner streets, now emptied of the roar and jar of many vehicles, many voices, many feet. He no longer recognises his surroundings. Everything appears cramped and close. There are strange ghostly shapes in the smoke, the chimneys make threatening gestures. Invisible bodies with restless souls chase after him. The windows glare as he hurries by.
Eventually his steps take him to Waterloo Bridge, known colloquially as the English Bridge of Sighs, where the outline of St Paul’s looms dark in the distance. He leans upon the stone parapet and stares into the black pit of water that rushes fearfully and secretly beneath him to the unknown ocean. Moonlight shines like a white pillar through a tear in the sky.
As the clock strikes one, he climbs the parapet. The lights upon the bridge burn dim. Life. Death. Only jumping-off points. When he jumps, will there be angels waiting to catch him? For a moment, he is statue-still, poised between earth and sky, between Heaven and Hell, knowing that things must end like this.
Then the air rushes past him and the darkness rushes towards him. He thinks about places he has never been, people he has never met, tears he has never cried and words he has never heard said. Briefly his pale face rises out of the dark water, ghosted with moonlight, before the current takes him and bears him away.
****
Stride and Cully stand in the empty room. It is early morning. Outside, a sudden shower is raining itself out in the empty streets. A small untidy servant girl watches them dumbly from the landing.
“He was here last night,” the unpleasant woman says sullenly. “I saw him with my very own eyes. And I didn’t hear him go out.”
“But he is not here now,” Stride says.
Cully picks up an empty glass bottle and sniffs at it.
“Opium,” he murmurs.
Stride circles the room, observing, making notes.
“And you say his name is William Smith?”
The woman purses her mouth.
“I think that was what he said. Never spoke much. Just came and went. He was at the University, I know that. Learning to be a doctor. I don’t let my rooms to any old riffraff.”
Cully lifts the thin mattress. Finds the dissecting knife. Beckons Stride over.
“So where is he now?” he asks the landlady.
“He must’ve gone out early. But he’ll be back, won’t he? Stands to reason. He hasn’t taken anything with him.”
Stride opens the chest of drawers and rummages inside. His hand comes out with a silver locket on a chain. Inside it, a curl of fair hair.
“I shall arrange for some of my officers to wait inside the house,” he says.
“So, it is him!” the woman’s eyes light up. “When do I claim the reward?”
Stride’s expression is so frozen it could have started another Ice Age.
“The ‘reward’ is nothing to do with the Metropolitan Police, madam. IF this is the man we are after, and IF we manage to apprehend him successfully, then I suggest you apply to The Inquirer. Tell them I sent you.”
He puts the locket down, turns on his heel and stalks out. Cully follows. The Foundling stands on the landing. She watches the two men descend the stairs, hears their footsteps in the hallway, hears the sound of the front door closing.
Next minute Mrs Witchard comes sailing out of the room, her face flushed with triumph. When she has gone, the Foundling steals into the empty room and picks up the locket, turning it to the light the better to see the rich blonde curl of hair, the shiny silver of the chain. Then she lifts it to her mouth, brushing its brightness against her lips. Her face is desolate and lost.
****
Summer in the city. Cherry blossom and lilac. Bands in the parks. Cholera in the slum courts. London was not built for heat. It is a place built on the image of rain, façades of ashlar stone designed for short cool days and long cold frosty nights.
Nevertheless, it is Summer. A fine morning. And here is a church. Here is a steeple. Step inside, and here are some people. It looks very much, from their best clothes and air of suppressed excitement, that something nice is about to happen. Why not slip into this box pew at the back and await developments?
You will not have to wait long. At the front of the church a tall, thin young man in a very shiny new top hat has just got to his feet. He is wearing very new gloves, and a very new suit that is a tad too big for him, but very smart none the less. He glances towards the back of the church, and his face lights up with radiant happiness.
And here comes the object of the radiance. Portia Mullygrub, transformed from dowdy drab into beautiful bride by a simple white cotton dress, a short veil and a garland of fresh flowers. She holds onto Pa’s arm with one hand and a spring posy with the other. Behind the pair walk Cordelia and the small Mullygrubs, tricked out in their finest, with solemn faces as behoves their newly elevated status as their big sister’s bridesmaids and pageboys.
Now the minister steps forward a
nd begins to recite the familiar service, the words echoing round the church, as they have done over the centuries. And before you can get out your pocket handkerchief to wipe away your joyful tears, Trafalgar Moggs, bachelor of that parish, and Portia Mullygrub, spinster of this one, are pronounced husband and wife together for as long as they both shall live.
Upon which all the small Mullygrubs throw their hats up in the air and shout “Huzzah!” and the new and blushing Mrs Moggs is kissed by Mr Moggs, before being passed round the assembled company as if she were a sugarplum. After which the whole company, including Ma, bustle noisily out of the church and head off for the wedding breakfast.
****
And here is the new bride a few days later, seated at the kitchen table of her newly-rented house with her new landlady. The dishes have been cleared away, the new ‘man of the house’ has departed for the city.
They are now awaiting the arrival of the painters and decorators, for Hyacinth has decided to decorate the whole house. There are too many vestigial memories of Mama and Lobelia for her liking.
And she has made other plans too. Plans that she wants to share with Portia.
“I have decided to sell some of the furniture and the paintings, and the rest of Mama’s jewellery, and use the money to go travelling,” Hyacinth tells her. “Just think: I have never set foot outside London in my whole life. There are so many places I have not seen. I have read about Paris, Rome and Venice in books. Now I should like to visit them for myself.”
Portia Moggs’ eyes sparkle.
“What a wonderful plan, Hyacinth!” she says. “I dare say I should like to travel the world some day too – when I am not needed by Ma to do all her letter-writing, and Traffy to keep house for him. And then there are the little ones to supervise.
“But I shall look forward to hearing all about these wonderful places when you return. And perhaps one day as you are travelling, you will see a handsome stranger and your eyes will meet across a crowded room, or a railway platform, or somewhere similar.”