Murder in the East End

by Jennifer Ashley

  He gently pressed Bessie aside and turned to help drag bricks and stones from the fallen. Bessie quickly wiped her tears and assisted him.

  As did I. The two of us and Jack shoved aside rubble, lifted men to their feet, steadied them. They were shaking, hurt, some of them badly. Guards had surrounded us, but most were busy uncovering men. A doctor appeared with several assistants, wrapping limbs in bandages or splints. The doctor ordered litters for those unconscious or unable to walk away.

  None of the prisoners tried to flee. They were too dazed, too shaken. The able ones helped the unable. If this had been a planned escape, either it had gone horribly wrong or most of these men had not been in on the scheme. They’d been taken unawares—they’d never have gone too near the falling wall if they’d known what would happen.

  As I worked through the dust and smoke and falling night, I noticed more men join the effort. Most were police constables, their dark blue uniforms smudges against the gloom. Bessie and her Jack worked tirelessly, and I hoped Jack might be given some leniency in his sentence for his efforts.

  At one point, when I straightened up to catch my breath, I saw, through dust and milling constables, Daniel.

  He stood about thirty feet from me down the street, on the other side of the break. He wore his workingman’s clothes, cap jammed on his head, his face creased with lines of sweat and dust. He finished lifting away stones to free a trapped man then turned and began questioning one of the guards, who was as shaken as the prisoners.

  I started to go to him, but checked myself as Daniel turned to a slim gentleman who’d broken through a knot of constables. The man did not have to push his way past the lads—they seemed to melt before him with the air of those deciding they’d rather be doing something elsewhere.

  The newcomer wasn’t very tall, but he commanded attention. He removed his hat to wipe his dust-coated face, revealing thin graying hair cropped close to his head. He replaced the hat, a bowler like any police inspector might wear, and removed spectacles from his pocket, looping them around his ears.

  Mr. Thanos wore spectacles when he needed to read, a fact that embarrassed him, though I thought they made him look scholarly. I had the feeling at times that Mr. Thanos wished the spectacles at the bottom of the sea.

  This man wore his spectacles as though daring anyone to mock him. Rather than hiding his eyes, they drew attention to them. Gray, I thought, or light blue, though I could not be certain from this distance.

  What I did see was that his eyes were cold. It was like looking at winter. The man’s demeanor fortified this appearance, as he stood arrogantly upright, gazing about the ruins as though deriding them and the guards who should have prevented the blast.

  Daniel squared his shoulders as the man approached him, as though bracing himself for a daunting encounter.

  The man asked a question, a brief one, his mouth barely opening to let out sound. Daniel began to talk, indicating the wall, the rubble, the fallen prisoners. He kept his motions economical, as though knowing his listener would not appreciate dramatic gesticulations.

  Another question, even briefer. Daniel shook his head, his hands falling to his sides.

  The man’s lips tightened. If he’d been cold before, now he became an iceberg. He swept the crowd with his gaze, and when it fell on me, I shivered as though touched by ice.

  He snapped his attention back to Daniel but spoke no more. Daniel held himself rigidly until the man swung away and turned that cold gaze on an unfortunate guard.

  Daniel didn’t slump in relief, but I saw his tension ease. As he turned back to the hurt men, he caught sight of me and halted, his gaze meeting mine.

  Daniel stared at me, probably wondering how on earth I’d come to be there. When I took a step toward him, he shook his head and glanced almost imperceptibly at the bespectacled man.

  He did not want me near with that man about, that was clear. I understood the warning, if not the reason.

  I subsided, admitting to myself that I did not want to be subject to the man’s chill gaze. I returned to Bessie and Jack and continued to work, until the guards began herding their charges back into the prison. When I looked up again, Daniel and the man with spectacles had gone.

  Jack caught Bessie in a hard embrace and gave her a kiss on the lips. Bessie clung to him, face wet with tears.

  “None of that now,” a guard said, but good-naturedly. “Come on, Jack. Six months more, and ye can kiss her all ye like.”

  Jack held Bessie a moment longer then released her with a resigned grin. “Not too long, love.” He touched her face, then the guard came to him, and Jack regretfully let Bessie go.

  “Look after her, Mrs. Holloway,” Jack said, bending his smile on me. “Don’t let her do nuffink daft. All right, all right, don’t worry,” he said to the guard. “I’m a-going back to my palace.”

  He strode off with the remaining prisoners, leaving Bessie trying to bravely wave a good-bye.

  I put my arm through hers. “Come along, my girl. We both need a strong cup of tea.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Jack and me, we’ve been together forever,” Bessie said as we held cups of pleasantly steaming brew. “Seems like it, anyway. Since we was kids.”

  We sat at the tea shop near the Foundling Hospital, the one to which I’d taken Grace last Thursday. We’d cleaned ourselves the best we could with handkerchiefs and water from a public pump, and I convinced the girl in the tea shop to let us in. She remembered me and grudgingly waved us to a table, plunking a hot teapot and two cups in front of us.

  “You were a foundling,” I said to Bessie, remembering what Mrs. Compton had mentioned about her. “Was Jack?”

  “Jack? Naw.” Bessie had laid aside her now-torn shawl, and dark curls framed her face, softening it and showing her prettiness. “But he worked at the Hospital as a lad, doing odd jobs or helping carpenters with repairs to the building—there’s always something what needs fixing. Jack and I would sneak into empty rooms and talk, and when we were daring, hold hands. It were innocent. We were children. Then when we got older, and both started working, we thought, might as well get married. Would save up and do it.”

  I poured out more tea and we took sips of the overly bitter but at least hot liquid. “Then he was sent to prison?”

  “Yeah.” Bessie held her cup in both hands. “Bet you think I’m going to say he were innocent, and wrongly banged up, but no. Jack did it. Was a fair cop, as they say.”

  “What exactly did he do?” I added a touch of sugar to my cup, but I doubted it’d cut the musty taste of the cheap tea. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “Stole a hammer and some other tools. Daft sod. Well, he wanted to be a carpenter, didn’t he? But you have to have tools, or no one will hire you. A man left his box just sitting there, and Jack helped himself. He wasn’t a very good criminal, was he, because he got caught five minutes later. But tools is expensive, so Jack got two years in the Steel.”

  A grim place. A rhyme I’d learned as a child told of the devil getting ideas to improve cells in hell from Coldbath Fields. “His sentence is up in six months, I heard the guard say.”

  “Yeah. But I think the guv’nor should let him go, for what he did today.” She glared, her belligerence returning. “Helping the hurt men and all, guards and prisoners alike. Jack could have run away, but he didn’t, did he?”

  Her baleful look told me she thought I’d disagree, but I had much sympathy for Jack.

  “I too hope that this incident lessens his sentence.” My statement surprised but mollified her, and Bessie resumed her tea. “Now, why were you there, Bessie? You were terribly out of sorts today. Did you know the explosion would happen?”

  Now she looked amazed. “Me? How could I know? Don’t you be putting the finger on me, Mrs. Holloway. I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to break down a wall, and
neither would Jack. He’s a builder, yeah, but he nails up cornices or hinges doors, that sort of thing. He wouldn’t know nothing about blowing things up.”

  “Then why were you so worried today?”

  Bessie sighed. She noisily slurped tea, but when she met my gaze again, the fight had gone out of her.

  “I were trying to take a message to him. Nothing that would get him into trouble, just me telling him I was well and we’d be together soon. I do that once in a while, and he sends me a message back. Only, I hadn’t heard from him in some weeks, and I started to be afraid.”

  “That he was ill?”

  “Yeah, or even dead. I ain’t his wife, so would they tell me if he were gone? Guard when I went last time wouldn’t let me send a message, just shouted at me to clear off. See, there’s a guard there who’s a bit more friendly, who’ll say a message for me or one from Jack in return. I can’t read none, or write neither, so it has to be by talking. So we don’t say nothing but that we’re well and waiting, or praying for each other. I don’t even want to say I love Jack, because the guard would make fun, wouldn’t he?”

  Poor Bessie. My heart burned for her. No wonder she’d been so disagreeable, knowing the lad she loved was so close, and yet kept from her by a thick wall and time. Sent to a place as awful as the Steel for nicking a few carpenter’s tools while he tried to find work.

  I would have a word with Daniel about Jack, and he could speak to Inspector McGregor. I vaguely knew that judges had to do with trials and sentencing, not the police, but perhaps the inspector could pass on the fact that Jack was a good lad and didn’t deserve such a harsh fate. As disagreeable as Inspector McGregor could be, he was fair.

  I set down my cup, remembering what I was about today. “The true reason I went to the Foundling Hospital, Bessie, is to make inquiries about children who have gone missing.”

  Bessie’s head jerked up. “Missing? What children? What you talking about?”

  I named them. “And two more lately.”

  “Oh.” Bessie relaxed. “You been misinformed, Mrs. Holloway. They ain’t missing—they’ve been adopted. Least, that’s what matron said. Bully for them, I say, if their new home ain’t foul.”

  “They might not have been adopted, or fostered, at all,” I said. “The addresses of the places they were supposed to have gone don’t exist.”

  Bessie took this in and understood quickly. She sat up straight. “You sure?”

  “I had a look myself. No houses exist at these numbers.”

  Her eyes were wide. “Where’ve they gone, then?”

  “That is what I am struggling to find out. Do you have any ideas?”

  Bessie’s forehead wrinkled as she thought. “I asked about little Maggie Penny, when her bed weren’t slept in. It’s up to me to tidy in the mornings when the kids are having breakfast. They make their own beds, but I smooth out the covers while I’m doing the dusting, so when the matrons come in and inspect, the little ones don’t get into trouble. Mrs. Shaw—she’s the housekeeper in the wing I do—told me Maggie Penny had been adopted by a good family, and matron said that was right. We pushed her bed to the wall, and it will stay bare until comes the next girl who’s old enough for that ward.”

  “Then nothing struck you as odd?”

  “No.” Bessie shook her head, curls dancing. “None of them have much in the way of things, but Maggie’s little box was empty, her clothes gone. So it must be all right.” Bessie’s gaze told me she wanted me to agree with her. “If she were snatched by wicked people, her things would still be there, wouldn’t they? And the matrons and director would be in a tizzy.”

  “That is true.” This was the first I’d heard that the girl’s things had been packed up, which pointed to the fact that her absence had been planned. “But something isn’t right. Do you think you can ask Mrs. Shaw, or the other maids, or the matron if they knew anything about Maggie leaving? Without putting the wind up anyone?”

  “I can.” Bessie looked confident. “I’ve been passing messages to my bloke for a year and a half with none being the wiser. But shouldn’t we send for the police? They’re useless most of the time, but maybe they could help.”

  I shook my head. “My friends have asked me not to. They don’t want to bring the law down on the Foundling Hospital and ruin its reputation if nothing is truly wrong.”

  Then again, the person who’d come to Daniel and me instead of the police was Mr. Fielding. The more I became acquainted with him, the more I realized Mr. Fielding did most things only to benefit himself. But then again, he had truly cared for Nurse Betts and her death had struck him hard. A complex man, was Mr. Fielding.

  “If you can keep your eyes open, I would thank you,” I said. “And if the police do need to be called in, I certainly won’t hesitate to do so.”

  Bessie regarded me with intelligent eyes. “You’re a good woman, Mrs. Holloway, I can see. I don’t know much what you can do, but I’ll have a butcher’s and tell you what I learn.”

  “Thank you, dear.”

  She nodded at me, her face dirt-streaked, eyes red from the grit that had fallen around us. We sipped our tea in silence, understanding each other.

  * * *

  * * *

  When I finally returned home, without my fresh herbs, my basket ruined, Tess took one look at me and barely stifled a shriek.

  “What the devil happened to you, Mrs. H.?”

  “A wall fell down,” I said. “I happened to be near. I’d better go wash up.”

  They all stared at me—Mrs. Redfern, Mr. Davis, Elsie, little Charlie. I took off my coat, dismayed at the pebbles and dust that rained from it. A gash in the coat’s sleeve made me even more unhappy.

  “That will have to be cleaned and mended,” I said with a sigh. “Did Miss Townsend return?”

  “No, but she sent that.” Tess pointed with the knife she held at a box on a stool, which overflowed with greenery.

  The delightful odors assailed me even as I reached it. Dill and thyme, parsley and chervil, chives and spinach, everything perfectly green and crisp, not a wilting stalk in sight.

  “Very kind,” I said in delight. I lifted a strand of rosemary and slid it under my nose, enjoying the clean fragrance.

  “Generous,” Mrs. Redfern said. “Those came from a fine garden, if I’m any judge. She’s a well-off lady, no mistake.”

  “Miss Townsend said she could get her hands on a rare Sauternes,” Mr. Davis said, a glow in his eyes. “Though Mr. Bywater might balk at the price.”

  “Lord Rankin might not,” I said. “Apply to him.”

  The glow flared. “Excellent idea, Mrs. Holloway. I’ll write to him at once.”

  Mr. Davis glided off, a spring in his step. Miss Townsend had known exactly how to turn him up sweet, I noted. She’d done the same with Mrs. Bywater and, now with these herbs, me.

  “You look a fright, Mrs. Holloway,” Mrs. Redfern told me. She, of course, was as neat as ever, not a hair out of place. “Upstairs with you to wash. Take care you’re not seen.”

  Her advice was good. Mrs. Bywater might once again decide to sack me if she saw me in this state.

  When I reached my bedchamber and looked into the small mirror that rested on the bureau, I winced. Mrs. Redfern had been right to call me a fright.

  My face was red as though I’d been sunburned, streaked with white dirt and smears of blood. Bessie and I had rubbed the worst from our faces, but we’d had to make do. My hair had been mostly protected by my hat, which itself was in a sad state. I dropped it to the chair—it was the same hat that had been soaked on my day out, and I definitely needed to clean and retrim it.

  I peeled off my gown, also caked with dirt and brick dust. I hoped it could be salvaged, as I had no spare money for more clothes. The mistress had given us fabric for new work frocks on Boxing Day, but as she’d spent little on the coar
se material, I hadn’t done anything with mine.

  I’d carried up a pitcher of hot water and now sloshed it into my basin. I contemplated the steam curling from the water and decided that a quick rinse of hands and face would not be enough.

  I stripped all the way down for a sponge bath, loosening my hair from its pins so I could wipe the dirt out of it. As I watched the sponge move down my damp skin, my dark hair hanging to my hips, I wondered on a sudden if Daniel would like me thus.

  My red face warmed, but the prickle of desire didn’t embarrass me as it ought. A natural thing, I told myself. Daniel was a handsome man, and kind, with a warm laugh and a fine pair of eyes.

  He was also deceitful and as comfortable with trickery as his brother.

  But at the same time, I knew Daniel wasn’t Mr. Fielding, as much as Mr. Fielding had tried to tell me they were birds of a feather. Mr. Fielding had shown me so far that he used deception for his own gain. Daniel used it to help others—to bring down criminals or find the lost.

  Daniel had a gentleness in his eyes that Mr. Fielding lacked. One that made me stand in my room without a stitch, peering into the mirror and imagining Daniel smiling at me. He’d reach a hand to me and pull me close, showing me without words how he felt.

  I tried to shove these errant thoughts away, but it was not easy. I’d not had passion in my life for a long time. Before I’d met Daniel I’d thought myself finished with it, too old, a mother and a matron.

  Now I pictured Daniel, and desire touched every part of me.

  I made myself finish my impromptu bath and dress again.

  By the time I reached the kitchen, in clean gray work dress and freshly starched cap, I was restored to my practical self. If I gave way to passion with Daniel, I might end up with another child, and that would be a very silly thing to do.

  That child would have Daniel’s eyes . . .

  The sight of Mr. Davis, in his shirtsleeves, hunched at my table with the newspaper spread before him, cured me of any romantic thoughts. I pushed them aside and went back to work.