by Carol Hedges
Fame & Fortune
A Victorian Crime Thriller
Carol Hedges
Copyright © 2020 by Carol Hedges
Cover Artwork and Design by RoseWolf Design
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are used fictitiously.
This edition by Little G Books (August 2020)
About the Author
Carol Hedges is the successful British author of 18 books for teenagers and adults. Her writing has received much critical acclaim, and her novel Jigsaw was shortlisted for the Angus Book Award and longlisted for the Carnegie Medal.
Carol was born in Hertfordshire, and after university, where she gained a BA (Hons.) in English Literature & Archaeology, she trained as a children’s librarian. She worked for the London Borough of Camden for many years subsequently re-training as a secondary school teacher when her daughter was born.
The Victorian Detectives series
Diamonds & Dust
Honour & Obey
Death & Dominion
Rack & Ruin
Wonders & Wickedness
Fear & Phantoms
Intrigue & Infamy
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Gina Dickerson, of RoseWolf Design, for another superb cover, and to my two patient editors.
I also acknowledge my debt to all those amazing Victorian novelists for lighting the path through the fog with their genius. Unworthily, but optimistically, I follow in their footsteps.
Fame & Fortune
A Victorian Crime Thriller
E sempre bene il sospettare un poco, in questo mondo.
(It’s always better to be a little suspicious in this world.)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ~Cosi fan tutte
London, 1867. It is midnight, and a cold, damp autumn wind is sulking around the brick chimneypots. Above, the star-studded sky is barely visible beyond the yellow flicker of gas lamps. A man stumbles along one of the streets leading down to the river. He is being supported by two other men, who hold him firmly by his arms. To the night-constables, sheltering in a doorway and sharing a smoke, it looks as if he has had too much to drink, and is being escorted home by a couple of companions, or perhaps some drinking associates.
This is not what is happening.
The man experiences a sense of unreality. He cannot feel his feet, nor the pavement beneath them. He doesn’t struggle or try to escape. He is a survivor, so he guesses that something has been put in his drink earlier in the evening to render him docile and compliant. Mind, he does not remember much of what happened earlier, but he knows with the part of his brain that is still functioning, that this is going to end very badly. The two men stop. A blindfold is placed around his eyes. They walk on. Then stop once more.
The air feels different now, closer, denser. He has the sensation of standing beneath some sort of big overarching structure. A bridge? He is propelled forward. He hears carriage wheels and the clip-clop of hooves passing overhead. He hears water lapping against wooden stanchions close by.
These will be the last things that he hears.
A few hours later, a group of returning revellers will stagger home along the riverside path. They will pass under the bridge, where they will see what looks like a strange shape swinging from a length of rope. It is only when one of the revellers, egged on by his friends, climbs the wooden scaffolding that has been erected as part of the bridge’s renovations, that it becomes suddenly and horrifyingly clear exactly what the swinging shape is.
****
The morning starts off drizzly, but as Detective Inspector Lachlan Greig and the officers carrying a stretcher make their way to the foot of the bridge, it brightens, so that by the time they get there, a pale wash of sunlight lies over the river, turning it into lemon-coloured slices.
The body lies on the path, just below the bridge. A couple of constables are engaged in holding back the gawping spectators. A third stands guard over the body. A line of onlookers leans over the bridge. There is a murmur of anticipation as the tall broad-shouldered detective and his men arrive on the scene. The body guard hurries towards them, a self-important expression on his face.
“We took the liberty of cutting him down,” he says, indicating the body, which is covered in a large sack. “Don’t want to alarm the ladies.”
Judging by the faces of the crowd, alarm is the last thing they are worried about. Greig stares down at the sack. He reads the words Art. Dollimore, Coal Merchant Suppliers, London City Wharf. Business & Domestic. The sack appears to be brand new. The top of a man’s head can just be seen protruding. He finds himself mesmerised by the words. Where on earth did they find a brand new coal sack at short notice?
“What can you tell me?” he asks, getting out his notebook.
“Suicide,” the constable says with a knowing air. “I warned them at the time: unattended scaffolding like this is an open invitation, I said. Should have put a guard on it, I said. Or some lights. And now look what’s happened,” he gestures towards the sack. “A man in the prime of life climbs up the scaffolding and throws himself off. Somebody’s going to have to answer for it, you mark my words, sir.”
Detective Inspector Greig motions to his men to transfer the body to the stretcher. The crowd on the bridge leans over to better see what is happening. Their expressions are eagerly hopeful. It reminds Greig of a picture he once saw of the crowd at a Roman gladiatorial contest. He hears the usual shouts of ‘Was it the Fenians?’ He ignores them.
“Can you show me exactly where the body was found?” he requests.
The constable leads him to the mouth of the archway and points upwards. “Just there. A-hanging from the top scaffolding pole. Group of men coming back from the King’s Head spotted him,” he says, folding his arms. “Soon as we were alerted, we rushed straight here. I made an assessment of the situation and had the body cut down. I checked his pockets, but there was nothing there ~ see, that’s a sure sign he wasn’t intending to go home. Suicide, like I said.”
His air of self-importance is grating. Greig tries to focus on the facts rather than the interpretation he is being offered. He is not buying the suicide theory. There are easier and far more effective ways to do away with oneself than climbing up rickety scaffolding on a dark night, attaching the end of a rope to a slippery pole and jumping, he thinks. And as for the lack of personal possessions, that could mean anything. He sometimes left his lodgings with nothing more than the price of a drink in his pocket.
He studies the ground. It is a blur of muddy footprints. Unfortunately, the constable, in making a decision way above his pay grade or intellectual ability, has now effectively eliminated any prints that might have provided a clue as to how this man really met his end.
“You writing all this down?” the self-designated expert inquires. “Will you be wanting me to submit a report to Scotland Yard?”
Greig indicates that this will not be necessary, as he believes he has mastered the salient points of the matter. The constable looks disappointed. Greig nods his unfelt thanks, and prepares to follow his men back to Scotland Yard. The sun has now disappeared behind a cloud, leaving the customary smell of decay and rot. A sailing barge is making its way upriver. In its wake, gulls swoop and cry. Greig recalls that they are supposed to contain the souls of the dead. A melancholy thought. It stays with him on the return journey.
****
The man dreams that he is a pastry. Then he dreams that so
mebody is trying to eat his face. He wakes to find that his cat has crept onto the coverlet and is licking his chin. He pushes her off the bed, deaf to the indignant miaowed complaints.
The man’s name is Gerald Daubney; he is an antiquarian and collector. He sits up and calls for his servant. Nothing happens. He waits for a bit longer. No one comes. Eventually he lifts the coverlet and slides his legs from under the sheets. Where is his shaving water? Where is his valet with his razor?
Still furred with sleep, he peers myopically for the accustomed jug and bowl of hot water, the towel, the clothes laid out on the chair, the deferential manservant, but they are absent. He reaches for his dressing gown and slides his arms into the sleeves. He searches for his slippers. They, too, seem to have disappeared.
Walking to the door, he steps over his discarded clothes from the night before. This, he decides, is not good enough. He opens his bedroom door and shouts “Flashley?” His voice echoes down the stairs. There is no sound of hurrying footsteps in response, no deferential wringing of hands. No apology.
Puzzled now, he descends the staircase and enters the drawing room, still shadowy behind its closed draperies at the windows. It takes him a few minutes to sense that something is amiss; another minute to track it to its source: a broken pane of glass in one of his display cabinets. As he hurries to examine it more closely, he steps on a sharp object. He utters a cry of pain and stares down. There is glass on the floor. He has trodden on a shard. His foot is bleeding.
Seriously alarmed now, his eyes scan the room for clues as to what might have happened. All too soon, he realises. The discovery causes his heart to pound. His mind stammers. He reaches out a hand to clutch the top of a chair. He feels the breath leaving his body. The room spins. No, it cannot be! He must’ve made a mistake.
Frantic now, he goes from room to room, leaving a trail of bloody footprints. He opens cabinet after cabinet and peers inside; he tips drawers onto the floor. He even bends down to check under sofas and chairs but finds nothing but a lot of unswept dust.
Eventually, he is forced to accept the truth. He has been robbed. Someone came into his house in the middle of the night, entered his drawing room, smashed a window in one of his display cabinets, and then proceeded to empty it of the precious contents. And his manservant? What has happened to him? Has he been taken also?
Shocked to the core of his being, Gerald Daubney goes back to his bedroom, wraps his foot in a handkerchief and scrambles into yesterday’s clothes. Then, breathless and breakfast-less, he grabs his hat, coat and stick and hurries out into the street. There is only one thing on his mind: he must seek out those who can advise him in his hour of need.
The Antiquaries and Collectors Club, situated off Pall Mall is not as well-known as the Athenaeum, or the Reform. It does not have the cachet of White’s or the louche reputation of the ‘Gyll’. It is modestly housed in a three-storied building set back from the main thoroughfare.
The club, as its name suggests, provides a forum and meeting place for gentlemen of independent means and individual passions to talk about, or show off, their collections. Papers are given describing the thrills and perils of voyages to far-off shores. Discoveries are displayed, to the amazement and delight of the membership.
Arguments rage over the authenticity or provenance of items brought in. The members might fall out (they frequently do), but they are united in a shared and irrepressible enthusiasm for beautiful and unusual objects from all over the world.
Daubney, his face still white and stricken with shock, arrives at the club entrance, and is shown inside by Withering, the elderly doorman and caretaker. Withering does not inquire after his health, nor what currently ails him, having long grown used to the obsessive and strange nature of the club membership, for whom the term ‘not quite all there up-top’ could be applied with impunity.
Instead, he silently takes Daubney’s hat and stick, and watches him climb the stairs, which creak in a suitably antique manner. Daubney goes straight into the library, where several members are poring over the daily newspapers and muttering under their breath. Upon his entry, an elderly member glances up, recognises him and beckons him over.
“Now then, Daubney, now then, see here: what d’you make of this? Here’s Carew, just back from Egypt, says he’s discovered a new pyramid, possibly the tomb of some pharaoh and the British Museum says it’s his public duty to donate any treasure his diggers pull out of the ground to them. To them! Have you been to the British Museum lately? It’s like some gigantic bazaar ~ stuff all higgledy-piggledy everywhere, no proper labelling, no sense of order. Over my dead body, that would be my response, and I intend to write to Carew and tell him so.”
At which point another member notices Daubney’s agitated demeanour.
“Hello, old chap, looking a bit seedy? Last night’s dinner not agreed with you?”
Daubney clasps his hands, works his mouth into several strange shapes. Finally, he bursts out, “Gentlemen, I have been robbed!”
Newspapers are carefully lowered.
“Robbed? When?”
“Last night,” Daubney says, clutching the top of the nearest armchair for support. “I awoke to discover that one of my display cabinets was empty. I have been robbed!”
“What has been taken?” someone asks.
“My collection of netsuke.”
There is a collective indrawing of antiquarian breath. Daubney is a collector of Japanese miniature sculptures, and in the years since the Japanese policy of sakoku ended, and the ports have finally opened up to British traders, he has built up a private collection of netsuke that is the envy of many in London.
“You are sure?” the member asks.
Daubney treats him to a long, slightly unhinged stare. “The cabinet was empty. The netsuke are no longer there. I have searched my house. They have been taken. Also missing is my manservant.”
“Ah. Well. There it is then. Find the one and you find the others. Not the first time someone has been robbed by his servants. Have you been to the police yet?”
Daubney flinches at the suggestion, “I am unwilling to subject my private life to the scrutiny of outsiders. The presence of the police inevitably leads to the presence of journalists and subsequently to articles in the newspapers. I thought in coming here, that you might be able to suggest other possibilities.”
There is a silence. On the one hand, Daubney has a reputation amongst the members for being slightly eccentric (actually, they are all eccentric to a greater or lesser degree, although they see themselves as perfectly normal). On the other hand, he has asked for advice. Minds are bent upon the problem.
“Perhaps your man might have surprised the intruder,” a member suggests. “He could have chased after him, and now returned, with, one hopes, the netsuke.”
Daubney considers this suggestion. “It is possible I suppose. I rushed straight here without waiting for his return,” he says slowly.
“I’d cut along home then and see if he’s there,” the member nods. “If he isn’t, you may have to resort to the forces of the law. I recommend the detective division at Scotland Yard. I had to avail myself of their services recently. Very professional. Very discreet. Nothing ever got into the newspapers.”
There is another silence while all eyes swivel with interest to the speaker, who clamps his lips together firmly and stares them down.
Daubney rises. “Yes. Thank you, gentlemen. You have set my mind at rest. I shall do as you suggest.”
He collects his hat and stick and hurries back to his house, where the continued absence of valet and missing items will finally lead him to decide upon the only other suggestion offered, despite his initial reluctance to do so.
****
The chill in the police mortuary is, if anything, even chillier than usual. The smell of chemicals and mortality are fighting their usual battle as Detective Inspector Stride enters. He lowers his eyes and studies the floor intently. It is either that, or looking at the contents of va
rious enamel dishes.
“Ah, detective inspector, I have been eagerly awaiting your arrival,” Robertson, the dour police surgeon greets him. “May I introduce my new assistant Mr. Aaron Baker. Fresh from University College Hospital and keen as mustard to get to grips, as it were, with the finer workings of the human body.”
A pale cadaverous young man in a white apron moves the corners of his thin lips upwards in what Stride chooses to interpret as a smile. He has a large dissecting saw in one hand. The other hand is resting on what Stride fears is the leg bone of some poor unfortunate.
“Mr. Baker, as you see, is testing the theory that the former owner of this leg could not have been accidentally run over by a cart as the fractures to the upper tibia are of much older appearance. Come closer, I’m sure Mr. Baker will be delighted to explain his findings.”
“I’ll stand here, if it’s all the same to you. No disrespect, Mr. Baker,” Stride says.
“You see, Mr. Baker, it is as I explained it to you earlier,” Robertson sighs. “The detective inspector is of what one might call a nervous disposition in relation to the sudden, premature or violent deaths of our customers. In situ, fine; in veritas, less so.”
Robertson favours Stride with a wide disingenuous smile, radiating innocence and bonhomie. Stride knows full well that it is a complete act.
“Now, to the matter in hand,” the police surgeon continues, removing the cloth covering a body. “You have come about the man found hanging from some scaffolding? I expect you wish to ascertain whether it was a case of felo de se? Preliminary examination leads me to conclude that, despite appearance to the contrary, the man in question did not commit suicide. You may express astonishment at my suggestion,” he peers at Stride from under his bushy eyebrows. Stride stares back impervious, refusing to give him the satisfaction.