[The Victorian Detectives 08] - Fame & Fortune

by Carol Hedges

  Stride opens the autopsy report, skimming over the medical terminology and Latin phrases with which Robertson likes to pepper his writing. Then he pauses, reaches for a pencil and makes a mark in the margin. Some time and several cups of coffee later, Stride catches up with Greig and Cully.

  “Robertson’s report on Mr. Flashley is done,” he tells them. “He writes that the deceased’s stomach contents were mainly liquid. Beer, he says. I think we should take a likeness of Mr. Flashley round some of the public houses near to where he was discovered. Somebody might remember him, and the company he was keeping. Worth a try. We can’t sit around all day hoping something will turn up.”

  Greig exchanges a wry look with his colleague. Stride’s assumption that they have been idly passing the time is, as usual, somewhat misplaced. A small team of police constables has already been scouring the neighbourhood, making door to door inquiries on the lines of: Had anybody seen anything unusual on the night in question? Had anybody seen a group of men in the vicinity of the bridge? Had anybody seen activity around the actual bridge itself? Had anybody seen anything at all? A negative response on all counts. To be expected. No one wanted to get drawn into something that might set them at odds with the community.

  “We’ll get on to it straight away,” Cully says reassuringly.

  Some time later, the two detectives arrive at their first port of call. The Ship Inn is a low public house. If it got any lower, it would be resting on the actual mud of the river itself. There is an ooziness about its aspect, a drippy quality to the green door, as if it needed to be wrung out. The bricks look as if they would feel clammy to touch. The small ground-floor windows are water-stained and cloudy. Even the painted sign over the door, chafing on its rusty hooks, exudes dampness, as if the billowing main in the picture was leaking over the edges.

  Greig and Cully enter. The Ship Inn is ill-lit, cavernous and almost totally empty. It smells of musty disuse. As they cross the floor, two matted dogs get up from their place in front of the smoky fire and start barking at them. A thrawn-faced barmaid, who could have breakfasted on lemons, screams incomprehensible abuse at the dogs, who look as if they might burst into tears as they slink off to a far corner. She leans on the bar, smiling with radiant falseness.

  “’Morning gents. What’s it to be?”

  “Some information, if you please,” Greig says, showing her his card. Stepping forward, he places a photograph onto the bar. The woman studies it for a second, then shakes her head.

  “No. Never seen ’im before.”

  “He could have been in the company of a couple of other men. They are the ones we’re seeking.”

  The barmaid pretends to consider the suggestion.

  “Sorry, gents, wasn’t working that night.”

  “I don’t think I said what time of day I was interested in, did I?” Greig says, turning to Jack Cully.

  “No, I don’t think you did,” Cully rejoins.

  The barmaid closes her mouth firmly. The silence extends, settling round them. Greig and Cully wait. They have outwaited masters of suddenly-developed-muteness many times before, and they can outwait her if they have to.

  “Look, you really don’t want to know about them,” she says finally.

  “We do, that’s why we’re asking you,” Cully says.

  The barmaid purses her lips and goes silent again.

  “Withholding information from the police is a crime,” Cully says sternly. “Refusing to answer our questions is a crime. Lying to the police is a crime …”

  A customer emerges from the far end of the room.

  “Watering the beer is also a crime,” he says, placing his empty pint pot on the counter.

  The barmaid rounds on him in fury.

  “Oi, you ~ this is a respectable house. We do not water the beer!”

  The man shrugs. The barmaid glowers. The man catches Greig’s eye, holds his gaze for a full second before slightly inclining his head towards the door. The two detectives watch him leave, then, ignoring the still spluttering barmaid, they silently follow him out.

  The man is leaning on a wall, waiting for them to emerge. He touches his cap in greeting.

  “Jonas Mellows, midshipman on The Golightly,” he says. “My ship’s due out of the Port of London this afternoon. I overheard what you were talking about.”

  He holds out his hand and Cully gives him the photograph. Mellows studies it for a few seconds, then nods.

  “Aye, I recognise him. Comes in occasionally with Herbert Black and his brother Munro Black ~ black by name and black by nature. I guessed when Emma said you didn’t want to know in that tone of voice, that it’d be something to do with them.”

  Greig names the specific evening they are interested in. The man scratches his head, frowns, then agrees that as far as he remembers, Munro Black was drinking in the Ship Inn in the early part of the evening, possibly in the company of another man, not his brother this time. He did not recall them leaving at any point.

  “If you’re going after the Black brothers, you’ll need to keep your wits about you, gents. There’s evil, and there’s pure evil, and there’s Herbert and Munro Black. As I know to my cost.”

  He rolls up his left sleeve and shows the two detectives a long scar, running from wrist to elbow.

  “Knife fight with Herbert. He’s the younger brother. Charmer on the surface. Nasty piece of work underneath. I grew up with them. They run things around here, if you get my drift,” he nods at the police photograph, “Your man in the picture ~ dead? Thought so.”

  “If everyone is so afeard of them, why are you helping us?” Greig asks.

  The midshipman smiles thinly. “As I said, my ship’s due out of the Port of London on the afternoon tide. By the time the Black brothers realise who’s shopped them, I’ll be halfway to Lisbon. By the time I return, you’ll have them both behind bars, if there’s any justice in this world. Besides, Herbert Black and I have history, as you might say. And if you want to know what it is, go ask Amy Feacham ~ you’ll find her behind the bar at the Mermaid’s Arms in Earl Street. They don’t water the beer there.”

  He touches his cap in farewell, then turns and heads off down one of the numerous small side streets. Greig and Cully watch him go. Cully checks his notebook. “The Mermaid’s Arms ~ I don’t think we’ve visited that one yet.”

  “Then I suggest we go there forthwith,” Greig says. “Let us see what this Miss Feacham has to say.”

  The two detectives make their way through foot-streets that lead them in the direction of the wharfs and docks that line the river, until eventually they smell the raw stink of river mud, hear the slap of water against wooden stanchions, and see, in the distance, a forest of masts above the rooftops and tall chimneys belching clouds of black smoke.

  Greig and Cully lose themselves, ask directions, lose themselves again, finally finding themselves on a swing-bridge overlooking a busy wharf, where lighters, schooners carrying coal from the north-east coast, sailing barges and watermen’s skiffs are berthed or unloading cargoes.

  Beer barrels are being rolled off a barge and up a narrow plank to the jetty. There is a row of dilapidated houses, some with their windows hanging over the water, their white-painted house-boards stained and peeling.

  A small child leans out of a first-floor window, watching a stray dog searching for scraps on the runway down to the river. The air is full of hammering and sawing and the smell of wood, for there are a couple of ships tied up being refitted, their foretop masts and yards unshipped, their rigging and stays slackened.

  At last, exasperated by their inability to locate it, Greig hails a man piloting a hay barge stacked high with bales and heading upstream, and is given directions to the Mermaid’s Arms. The detectives cross the bridge, walk down the rather precarious plank and handrail structure that leads to the wharf and head up a small alleyway between two rows of houses, thus entering that part of the city known as Down by the Docks.

  Down by the Docks is home t
o a great number of people, many of whom are out and about. The street is littered with oyster shells, fish heads, vegetable peelings, stray cats, small children, crawling babies, fighting dogs, women with unbonneted heads and bandanna kerchiefs floating from their shoulders, and seamen with bare tattooed arms and hands in pockets.

  Every building in every court and every alley is a low boarding house, with posters in the front windows advertising ‘Lodgings for Travellers’ or ‘Clean beds’. These places are rented by dock-labourers, sailors, sack workers or people who make their living by the waterside.

  There are slop shops galore, run by swarthy bearded Jewish merchants, who have managed to suspend vast curtains of red and blue flannel shirts, nor’-wester hats and waterproof overalls outside their shops. There are sail-maker shops, shops supplying gear for ships or gear for sailors, provision-agents and customs offices all crammed together.

  They pass a ship lying broadside-on to the wharf. Two stout gangplanks connect her with the wharf, and a row of carts and vans are transferring their cabbages, cheeses, tubs of butter, barrels of beer, milk, loaves of bread, sacks of flour, potatoes and boxes of biscuits from wharf to deck.

  Greig and Cully side-step the various goods lying on the wharf, and continue their journey until they finally reach a public house. The sign over the door depicts a golden-haired young woman rising out of an azure-blue sea. She wears a welcoming smile at one end, a bright green fishtail at the other, and very little in between.

  They push open the door. In contrast to the Ship Inn, this public house is brightly lit and welcoming, not least due to the attractive young women in spotless white aprons standing behind the gleaming bar.

  The only customers at this time of day are three elderly men, with ‘sea-dogs’ written all over them. They have cloth caps and hunched shoulders and sit playing cards, their drinks at their right hands. One tosses a card, face-up, on the table, followed by his companion. The third gathers up the cards and re-shuffles them. His fingers are bent and gnarled, the tips stained brown with tobacco.

  The old men glance up quickly as the detectives pass by their table, approach the bar and order their drinks. Then, as Greig and Cully pass their table once more on the way to a vacant corner booth, they deliberately glance down at the cards in their hands. Greig and Cully sit down. In a couple of minutes, the younger and prettier of the barmaids arrives, carrying two tankards.

  “Your drinks, gents,” she says, placing the tankards down on the scrubbed oak table. She stands back, arms folded. “I’m Amy Feacham. I know who you both are, and I know what you’ve come about.”

  They are not surprised. The speed with which a rumour can run round the city is a well-known phenomenon. Sometimes, the rumour is even up and running before the starting pistol has been fired.

  Greig produces the photograph of James Flashley and lays it on the table. “Have you ever seen this man before, Miss Feacham?”

  The barmaid raises her eyebrows at the polite appellation. She looks down. “Might have. He don’t look too happy, does he?”

  “On the evening we’re interested in, we think he was in the company of a Mr. Munro Black. Mr. Black was possibly drinking in the Ship Inn.”

  “Ah. That’d explain the look on his face. They water the beer at the Ship. Everybody knows it.”

  Cully attempts to pull the conversation out of the quagmire before it settles in.

  “Mr. Munro Black. You know where we might find him?”

  Amy Feacham’s face takes on a set expression. Her lips tighten.

  “Maybe. You won’t find him round here, I can tell you that for nothing.”

  Greig gives her his most winning smile.

  “What can you tell us then? It would be very helpful if you could point us in the right direction.”

  “I’m sure it would. But how would it help me, is what I’m thinking.”

  Cully leans in. “We are talking murder here, Miss Feacham,” he says quietly. “A brutal murder. Robbery too. It is your duty to help the police with their enquiries. Any information you give us will be treated with the utmost confidence, I assure you on my word.”

  Amy Feacham laughs harshly. “You think I trust your word, Mr. P’liceman? Or the word of any man in this city?” She stares into the distance, her dark eyes solemn, her face remote and thoughtful.

  The two detectives await her decision. Finally, she sighs.

  “Right. This is what I’ll say. If you want to find Herbert and Munro Black, don’t go looking around here. They left this place behind them a long while ago. Too low for the likes of them now, we are. Ask in Russell Square, where the nobs of the West End live. I’m sure somebody will direct you to their door. And if you do find it and knock, you might care to ask about Rosa ~ say we haven’t heard from her in a long while, eh.”

  Ah. Greig remembers the sailor’s words. So this is the ‘history’ he spoke about. A row over a girl. He had thought the remark referred to something less prosaic, more swashbuckling.

  “Who is Rosa?” Cully queries.

  “My sister,” comes the surprising reply. “She’s only sixteen. Got lured away by Herbert Black. We warned her against him. Said he was no good for her. But she wouldn’t listen, coz he bought her clothes and jewels and such. Made her all sorts of promises about being a fine lady.

  “Next thing, she went off in a carriage, and we ain’t seen nor heard from her since. Ma hasn’t had a night’s sleep for worrying, and my little sister cries her eyes out every time she sees Rosa’s empty chair by the fire.”

  She stares fiercely at the detectives. “You say you want the Black brothers for murder? Well, I want them for taking away my sister. So, if you find them, you come straight back and let me know, eh? Let’s call it my reward for ‘helping the police with their enquiries’, shall we?”

  Having imparted her conditions, Amy Feacham picks up the drinks tray and goes back to the bar, leaving Greig and Cully staring thoughtfully into their pint pots. They had come looking for answers, but now, had discovered more questions. The investigation into the death of James Flashley, which seemed a fairly simple one, has just developed mission creep.

  “Murder, robbery, and the abduction of a young woman,” Cully murmurs. “I predict Detective Inspector Stride isn’t going to like this at all. Not one little bit.”

  ****

  Gerald Daubney, antiquarian and collector, finds himself suddenly a ghost in his own life. His fortress walls have been breached. The empire is crumbling, the barbarians are at the gates. In the past week, he has been robbed by persons unknown in conjunction with a known person, whom he trusted, and who has been brutally murdered. His privacy has been invaded by policemen, who have asked him all sorts of questions while walking round his domain, one of them picking things up and handling them.

  The horror! The horror!

  Nobody has ever visited his shuttered and heavily curtained abode since the day his beloved mother passed away in the front bedroom. Not many people visited it before this event took place, truth to tell. And now, there appears to be a constant stream of people knocking at his door, sitting on his furniture and offering sympathy while eyeing his precious objects with greedy accumulative eyes. He feels violated by visitors.

  Here are two more of them: fellow antiquarians, shown in by a maid who is some relative of the cook, and has been appointed on a temporary basis. By whom? He did not appoint her. He does not know her name, but her shoes squeak in an alarming fashion. The visitors seat themselves on two of the small, antique, velvet upholstered occasional chairs, relics from his childhood, and not meant to take the weight of their ample bulky bodies.

  The maid inquires, in a deferential voice, whether it is his wish that refreshments should be served. His wish is that he’d be left alone with his cat, and his sorrows, but proprieties must be adhered to, so he inclines his head in agreement.

  “Now then, Daubney, now then, how are you doing, old man?” asks Charles Warren, collector of the sort of paintings ge
nerally hung in a locked study away from innocent female eyes.

  Daubney winces. He would hardly describe himself as an ‘old man’ and the interlocuter’s tone of voice suggests he is suffering from some chronic and painful condition.

  “We were passing your door, so we thought we’d look in,” says his companion, antiquarian Augustus Roach-Smith, acquirer of British urns and Roman vessels.

  Nobody ‘just passes his door’, Daubney thinks. There is a high wall and an equally high iron gate, leading to the tall flat-faced white house which is itself situated at the end of an unpaved road, in an unfashionable part of the city. Its charm lies in its obscurity. Before the robbery, he could go for weeks without seeing another human being, save for servants or tradesmen, who didn’t count. It was a state of affairs that suited him admirably.

  Now, seemingly, it is open house. The world and its friends beat a path to his door, all eager to give their opinion on what happened and how it might have happened and why it happened. Everybody is an expert. Everybody has a theory. Everybody wants to tramp round the rooms, view the empty cabinet, shake their heads, and ask him the exact value of what he has lost. They are like the crowd at a public hanging. He should sell tickets, he thinks bitterly, as the unnamed small female servant enters with a tea tray.

  The two collectors spoon sugar into their cups, fill their plates with tiny sandwiches and shortbread biscuits. Daubney takes a cup and plate but eats and drinks nothing. His appetite, like his precious collection of netsuke, has left him.

  “We gather that the police have identified the body they found swinging from the bridge as that of your manservant,” says the acquirer of urns, his mouth full of sandwich.

  Daubney stares at him. “What is this? How have you ‘gathered’ it?”

  “Oh, it was in one of the morning papers. They quoted you: apparently you said what a terrible business it was and how you’d never suspected your own manservant of being capable of such a heinous crime as robbing his own master.”