[The Victorian Detectives 08] - Fame & Fortune

by Carol Hedges

  Colbourne nods and stands, indicating that the meeting is at an end. The Author reties her bonnet strings, then gets shakily to her feet and totters out of the office, still rigid with shock. Colbourne waits until he is sure she has left the building. Then he summons his clerk and orders him to take down a letter at his dictation.

  Privately, he knows that writers like Hemmyng-Stratton are two-a-penny. He has a pile of unsolicited manuscripts stuffed in his cupboard, most of which are pretty well the same quality and content. But publicity such as this cannot be bought or manufactured. It only comes a small publisher’s way once in a lifetime, and he intends to make the most of it.

  As soon as news of what has happened comes out, and it will come out, even if he has to go to every newspaper in the city, copies of Cecil Danvers are going to fly off W. H. Smith’s station bookstalls and out of Mudie’s lending library like hot cakes. There will be second and third impressions. Orders galore from small booksellers. He is going to make money. More money than he could ever dream of.

  Colbourne dictates. The clerk writes. Then Colbourne signs the letter with a flourish and instructs the clerk to deliver it by hand to Strutt & Preening at their Gray’s Inn Chambers, but not to bother waiting for an answer.

  As soon as the clerk has gone, Colbourne reaches down his hat and coat, and sets out to speak to his printer. There is much to organise. He swaggers along the pavement, swinging his walking stick in a debonair fashion. Publish and be damned, be damned! Publish and be damned rich, that’s more like it!

  ****

  While Charles Colbourne is counting his prospective wealth and gloating over his good fortune, in another part of the greatest city on earth, three detectives are pooling information and trying to come up with a way of taking their investigation forward.

  “Is this not what our Mr. Robertson would call devising a modus operandi?” Greig remarks cheerfully, stretching his legs to the almost non-existent fire spluttering in the grate.

  Stride shoots him a glance. Don’t you start, it says. “As I see it,” he remarks, drumming a pencil against the side of a coffee cup, “We have several lines of inquiry: There is the local one ~ not that anybody is speaking to us, of course, good law-abiding lot that they are: saw nothing, heard nothing, saying nothing. Then there are the Black brothers ~ who sound like criminals who’ve moved up-market. The third line of inquiry is asking round our sources if they know who owned James Flashley’s debt and how much it was.”

  “If he was gambling and losing money, that would certainly explain the theft,” Cully says. “But I don’t understand why he was murdered. It doesn’t make sense. You don’t hang a man because he owes you money. You certainly don’t hang a man if he’s just paid up.”

  “I think the answers to all these questions are to be found in Russell Square,” Stride says. “Yes, that is where they lie. With the blackguard Black brothers ~ a good description, I think. We must go at once and make inquiries, but we will need to tread warily ~ this is where the so-called ‘better class’ of people live and they won’t take kindly to being treated like the sort of people we usually deal with. I shall accompany you, just to make sure you don’t make any missteps.”

  Stride’s confidence in his own investigative abilities is not shared by the rest of the detective division, but luckily for him he is too busy rearranging his desk prior to leaving to notice Greig & Cully exchanging a quick rueful glance.

  ****

  The large townhouses of Russell Square are inhabited by merchants, bankers, the Sirs and my Noble Lords. Not as upper-class as Hanover Square, whose inhabitants look down upon it as a poor neighbour, but still possessing a private garden, surrounded by green-painted railings and planted with great plane trees.

  There is a statue of Francis Russell, Duke of Bedford at the centre of the garden, a reminder that the privileged inhabitants owe their circumstances to someone even more privileged. Detective Inspector Stride enters the square, accompanied by Detective Sergeant Jack Cully. Lachlan Greig has remained at Scotland Yard to instruct a couple of new recruits who are not convinced about the concept of joined-up writing.

  The two men pause at the north end, contemplating their next move. After a few silent minutes have elapsed, Cully says, “We have been here before, haven’t we?”

  Stride turns to face him. “Exactly what I was thinking. It was 1860. Seven years ago. Almost the same time of year when we found the body of that Romanian Countess. Impaled on the railings.”

  “If she was a Countess,” Cully murmurs, and Stride nods, pulling a wry face.

  What they had discovered on that terrible night has haunted both men for many years afterwards. Indeed, Stride still has the occasional nightmare, from which he emerges cold and shaken in the small hours. Always the same thing: Something with black fur and glaring yellow eyes is stalking him through the empty streets of the city.

  “Number 55, if I’m not mistaken,” he says. “South end of the square. Might just as well start there with our inquiries as anywhere else. Come on.”

  The two detectives cross the square. They arrive outside Number 55, which has undergone a makeover since their last visit. A glazed cast-iron porch now extends from the gate to the front door. There are fresh blinds at the windows and the chipped black and white chessboard tiles on the front path have been replaced by newer versions.

  And yet.

  Something about the house still exudes unease. It is as if the ghosts of the past linger on, albeit tamed and modernised. Cully is reminded of a previous case: the brutal murder by a man of his wife and two children. Questioning the neighbours, he was told over and over again that the house in which they’d lived had a ‘reputation’ ~ misfortune of some kind had always affected everybody who’d inhabited it.

  At the time, he’d dismissed it as local folklore. Then the house got blown up in a gas-leak. Now, as the detectives open the wrought-iron gate and walk up to the black-painted front-door with its elaborate new brass furnishings, he is prepared to give folklore the benefit of the doubt.

  Stride’s brisk knock brings a small housemaid to the door. Her eyes widen at the sight of the two detectives and her mouth falls ajar. Stride fixes her with an official stare. As a young police officer, he quickly realised that the emotion he most often inspired in people was alarm followed by pre-emptive guilt. It had its uses.

  “Is your master within?” he inquires loftily, proffering his card. The girl gapes at him, wipes her hands on her apron and eyes the small cardboard rectangle suspiciously. She does not take it.

  “Is he wivvin what?” she asks.

  Cully smiles inwardly. Just because the ‘better class’ of people inhabit these luxurious houses, it doesn’t follow that they employ the ‘better sort’ of servants. This servant-girl, little more than a child, has a scared, half-witted look about her.

  “We are looking for two gentlemen who we believe live in the Square. Their names are Mr. Munro and Mr. Herbert Black,” he says in a slightly softer tone than his colleague. “Do they live here, in this house? Or if not, do you know where we might find them?”

  The girl frowns. Her eyes dart from side to side as if seeking an answer in the ether that surrounds them. Stride and Cully stand and wait.

  “Is it about business?” she asks, at length.

  Stride nods. “It is indeed.”

  “Umm. I’ll have to ask,” she says, and before they can stop her, she closes the door in their faces.

  They wait a little longer. Then Stride knocks loudly on the door again. This time, nobody comes to open it.

  “Aha. Well, well, it looks as if we may have found them,” he says, rubbing his hands together. “That was a piece of unexpected luck!”

  Cully considers the possibility that Stride is right. Or that he has just terrified a young servant half out of her wits and sent her scurrying back to her basement scullery without passing on the message.

  They walk back down the path.

  “We will call again soon
,” Stride says. “Meanwhile, these Watch Boxes need to be manned. I’ll go and round up some of the local beat constables.”

  As they turn to cross the square, Cully glances back at the house. His eyes stray upwards to the third floor. At one of the windows, he suddenly spies the pale triangle of a woman’s face, framed in dark curls. Their eyes meet. Her mouth opens, but she is too far away for him to work out what she is saying. Then she disappears, and the blind is pulled down.

  “I’ll keep watch until the constables arrive,” he says. “I can use one of the boxes.”

  Stride nods, “If you’re quite sure.”

  He hurries away. Cully stations himself inside an empty Watch Box. Its narrow aperture gives him a clear view of the house. He has a sudden sense of déjà-vu, remembering how, as a very young constable, still wet behind the ears, he took his turn at being on duty in just such a Watch Box on the edge of one of the exclusive London squares.

  He recalls the cold, the sense of isolation, with just a rattle and a candle for company. The rich inhabitants of the square barely acknowledged his presence as they came and went in their private carriages or on horseback. He, like the box, was just part of the outdoor furnishings. A way of preserving their privacy and keeping themselves and other poorer neighbours apart.

  But that was long ago, he reminds himself. And now, here he is, a member of the detective division, with a wife and two beautiful daughters. He hears the clatter of hooves as a carriage drives past the box. Cully applies his gaze to the small wooden aperture. The carriage sweeps round the side of the square and comes to a halt outside Number 55.

  ****

  Mrs Riva Hemmyng-Stratton, novelist, sits at her small walnut writing desk. It is furnished with all her writing accoutrements: the bottle of black ink, an assortment of pens and pencils, a blotter and a stack of white paper. Beyond the window, leaves are dancing madly in the wind. Little puffed clouds are scudding across the grey sky and smoke rises upwards from numberless chimneys.

  She does not notice. With hot glowing cheek and palpitating bosom (as befits a true tragic heroine), she is thinking about the awful predicament that has suddenly befallen her. She is quite sure that the events described in her book were not copied. She cannot recall ever hearing of the affair that she is supposed to have fictionalised. But how, oh how, can she prove it?

  The Author rests her elbows on the desk, her chin propped up by her cupped hands. There is a small teapot, a cup and saucer, and a plate of macaroons next to her elbow, but neither bite nor sup has passed her lips since she got in.

  What to do ~ oh what to do? Will she have to change her name? To retire from the literary scene, wherein she has enjoyed modest success? Must she go back to once again writing worthy Sunday school stories for small children?

  Perish the thought! A shudder of horror runs through her artistic frame. She cannot go back there. Not now she has entered, (albeit fictionally) the glittering world of the aristocracy. The bible is all very well and good in its way, but it cannot compare to silk dresses, frogged coats or the chandelier-lit ballrooms and intrigues of the fashionable elite.

  Listlessly, she picks up the top page of her new oeuvre. Her beautiful heroine (possessor of a refined cinquecento profile) is dressed in a delicately folded and draped ivory silk gown adorned simply by a long and slender chain set with uncut jewels. She is waiting for the arrival of her dashing suitor.

  The heroine waits. The Author sighs. Her Muse has quite forsaken her. She has nothing to add. Her heroine will have to wait a little longer. Her creator has more important problems. Mrs Hemmyng-Stratton breaks a piece off one of the macaroons and pops it absentmindedly into her mouth. Her fate, unlike that of her heroine, lies in the unsteady hands of an unknown woman incarcerated in a lunatic asylum.

  It is exactly like the plot of a novel. A wronged Lord, a beautiful Lady (she assumes she is beautiful) shut away from the world behind stout walls. And she, the innocent party, dragged unwittingly into the story.

  All at once, she sees herself in a new light. Her predicament resembles the plot of a book written by Mr. Wilkie Collins, a writer she very much admires. The Author cogitates, then rises, goes to her little walnut bookcase and withdraws a copy of The Woman in White. Abandoning her heroine entirely, she takes the book and the plate of macaroons to an easy chair and starts turning the pages.

  Fiction has brought about her awkward predicament. Therefore, let fiction extract her from it. The resolution to her current dilemma lies within these covers. It must do. She has only to peruse the plot, and then use her imagination.

  ****

  Meanwhile, peering through the aperture of the police Watch Box, Jack Cully sees the carriage door open. A stout matronly woman, dressed in respectable black, alights. There is a pause. Then, one after another, two young girls descend. Slowly.

  From his unseen vantage point, Cully can tell there is something not right about them. Their movements are slow and languorous, as if they were swimming through treacle. Their eyes stare straight ahead and their faces show no emotion at all, as they are pushed and pulled through the gate, then dragged up the path to the front door of Number 55.

  There is a brief pause, after which the woman returns with the two girls, now accompanied by a third. Cully focuses upon the little group. He is sure she is the girl whose face he saw at an upper window. The woman hustles them all into the carriage, then gets in herself, tucking some notes into her bag.

  She slams the door, and they are driven away, leaving Cully to ponder upon what he has just witnessed. If this is what he thinks it is, and he is pretty sure it is what he thinks it is, then they have uncovered something far darker than the theft of some miniature Japanese wooden carvings. Darker even, than the taking of a man’s life.

  A short while later, two constables from C Division enter the square. Cully extracts himself from his vantage point and invites them to accompany him. Positioning them at a discreet distance, he knocks on the door of Number 55.

  This time, the door is opened by a different parlour maid wearing a black dress, an afternoon apron and smart cap. Cully inquires as to the occupants’ whereabouts, and is informed tartly that ‘Mr. Black is occupied with business at the moment and is not receiving visitors.’

  Cully states his wish to wait. Smiling affably, he steps over the threshold. He has acquired, over the years, the knack of endearing himself to house servants, unlike Stride, who has a tendency to speak hectoringly, and make demands which put their backs up.

  His affability pays off. The maid disappears, leaving him to his own devises. Cully sits on one of the two gold-painted hall chairs placed on either side of a small table. He has retained his coat and hat in case a speedy getaway is on the cards.

  A grandfather clock ticks mechanically. Apart from that, the house is absolutely silent. Cully strains his ears trying to make out any voices, possibly in distress, but the thick carpets and closed doors mask off any sounds.

  Ten minutes pass by. Slowly. Cully sighs. For all he knows, he could be here for hours. There is a fireplace with a mirrored over-mantel close by the staircase. He gets up and goes to check his appearance. The Watch Box had not been dusted for a long time.

  The over-mantel contains a brass dish on a stand for visiting cards, a china shepherdess, and a little cat, carved in ivory. The cat has green eyes; its head is turned to one side as it washes its flank with a small pink tongue. It has ‘clue’ written all over it. Cully picks it up. Could this possibly be what Mr. Daubney calls a netsuke?

  He turns it over. There are some black painted marks on the underside. They might be Japanese writing ~ Cully has never seen Japanese writing before so he can’t be sure. He puts the little cat carving down and makes a quick memorandum and a sketch in his notebook. He checks the time and decides not to wait any longer.

  After instructing the two constables to maintain a close watch on the house and alert him or Detective Inspector Stride to anything unusual, Cully sets off at a brisk pace towards
Scotland Yard. He intends to consult the list of missing netsuke when he gets back, just in case it contains a small ivory cat. If it does, then this might be the breakthrough they have all been waiting for.

  ****

  Maria Barklem is also counting on something. In her case though, it is not breakthroughs but buns. Stale buns. Buns that have sat on a shelf in the shop window all day. Buns that are about to be reduced in price so that the Scottish baker for whom she works can eke out his slender profit margin, and nothing goes to waste.

  Since first light, Maria has toiled behind the bakery counter, serving breakfast rolls and loaves to the servants and children sent out to fetch them. After that, there were the passing lines of workers, stepping inside to purchase a penny loaf or a bun. Later, housewives dropped by to fill their shopping baskets with the family’s daily bread (and the odd cake as a treat).

  Now it is late afternoon, and the rush has turned into a trickle. A few individuals, the sort that turn up regularly for the remaindering of produce, are waiting by the door for the signal that bread prices have dropped. Unlike earlier customers, these have poor quality clothing and faces pinched with want.

  And there are so many of them, Maria muses, as she cuts bread into quarters, slipping a couple of buns into a bag under the counter, where the loaf of bread that burned in the oven, also awaits the end of her shift.

  It does not escape her that a few yards away, in the majestic townhouses with black and white tiled steps leading up to the big front doors, people will be preparing to dine in warm comfort on turtle soup and roast pheasant, served by an army of cooks, maids and butlers.

  Here, the poor and desperately needy jostle and push for quarter loaves of bread, stale cake and rock-hard buns, grateful for anything to stave off the pangs of hunger. They will hunker down in some cold damp room or doorway to eat, the children trying not to cry over the state of their cold, blue, shoeless feet.