[The Victorian Detectives 08] - Fame & Fortune

by Carol Hedges

  “Daubney, old man!” Roach-Smith exclaims, clapping him on the shoulder. Daubney winces. “Good to see you out and about again. Come, let’s find you a seat near the front. Can’t have an expert like yourself skulking at the back.”

  Gerald Daubney, a born skulker, allows himself to be reluctantly propelled through the assembled crowd, acknowledging various greetings and protestations of sympathy by keeping his head down and his eyes fixed firmly on the parquet flooring.

  “Here we are,” Charles Warren says jovially, indicating, with a curt nod, to the current occupants of three seats in the front row that they had better shift. Before Daubney can protest that he does not wish to cause any trouble, he is plonked down on a seat. His two minders sit either side of him. There is no escape now.

  His last chance vanishes completely as the entertainment for the evening enters the rear of the room. Pittkethly is the sort of bluff specimen of muscular Christian Englishman who refers to the inhabitants of other countries as ‘Natives’. Daubney has encountered him socially a couple of times, but has never been tempted to read any of his books, which all have titles like: ‘Up the Yangtze on a Junk and a Prayer’ or ‘Bringing God’s Everlasting Light to Darkies’. He finds both the man and his attitude repellent.

  Nevertheless. He is here. And here is the guest speaker for the evening: Colonel Pittkethly, clad in jodhpurs, puttees and a Harris tweed jacket, striding onto the platform. He is preceded by the current chairman of the Antiquarian and Collectors’ Club, who rambles through the minutes of the last meeting, then gives a short, glowing eulogy upon the many and varied achievements of their honoured guest, throughout which Pittkethly smirks complacently under his large brown moustache.

  Eventually, the chairman talks himself to a standstill, and the colonel gets to his feet, seeming to expand as he does so, until his presence fills the room. His voice is loud and intrusive and Daubney feels himself shrinking back into his chair in response. Nevertheless, some of what Pittkethly says is interesting. His descriptions of Shanghai, with its maze of narrow streets leading to still narrower alleys, reminds him of some of his own night-walks around London.

  Peking, with its Forbidden City and beautiful temples, also has resonances. The division into the Tartar City to the North and the Chinese City to the south, divided by a fourteen-mile long wall, makes Daubney think of the river Thames, the liquid ‘wall’ cutting off south from north. He has never ventured south of the river, regarding it as a place of filth, stinking factories and human horror.

  Despite his reservations, he listens entranced to the colonel’s depictions of the dealers and native merchants in curios, who’d call daily at the legation and his mouth waters as he pictures the porcelain, jasper, jade, sculptures, lacquer work, silks and textiles they’d spread on the floor for Westerners to buy.

  He tunes out Pittkethly’s various asides on the superiority and sophistication of the white men compared with the strange and exotic Eastern people with their weird objects, backwards cultures, vile food and even viler customs. He tunes back in when Pittkethly mentions the netsuke and tsuba he acquired on his trip to Nagasaki.

  “I shall be offering many of the artefacts to the British Museum, for what I hope will eventually become the Liversedge Pittkethly Collection, an exhibition showing the development from savagery towards civilisation,” he announces proudly. “The rest will be offered for sale at Mortlake & Devine’s emporium in Sloane Street.”

  Now he has Daubney’s full attention, and as the colonel sits down to hearty applause, Daubney rises and makes his way hastily out of the room, down the stairs and, after collecting his hat, coat and stick, out into the cold and foggy London street.

  Tomorrow, he thinks to himself, he will get a cab to Mortlake and Devine and view the netsuke. Perhaps there might be a small ivory cat amongst the treasures there? His heart lurches in his thin chest at the thought, and the thought itself gives wings to his feet.

  Gerald Daubney hurries through streets thronged with evening revellers gathering like damp moths outside the brightly lit bars and places of cheap entertainment. Returning to the silent sanctuary of his house, he betakes himself straight to bed, eschewing the cold supper that has been left for him.

  But once again, sleep will elude him. Lying awake, Daubney circles the shrinking perimeter of his mind like a caged animal. Night. Darkness. Stars. Shadows. He listens as the minutes slowly creep by. A horse and cart clatter past on a late delivery. Two cats reach a stalemate in their game of feline chess. Occasionally, something clicks open in his mind, a bright tumble of thoughts spilling out.

  ****

  Detective Inspector Stride does most of his thinking while walking to and from his place of work. This habit is a throwback to his days as a beat constable, patrolling the streets of the city. In those days, he got through a lot of boots and a lot of thinking at the same time.

  Now, he rarely has the opportunity to lay out an investigation in his head and walk round it, metaphorically studying it from every angle. This is the best way to break the habit of seeing only a single solution. Crime is complex ~ as complex as those who commit it, and it is all too easy to assume the most obvious pathway is the correct one. Which it frequently isn’t.

  Currently, Stride is trying to track a path through the impenetrable jungle that separates the discovery of the manservant Flashley’s body from the arrest of his murderer. The journey is further complicated in that there is a map leading to the murderer, but important chunks of it seem to be missing. He has a strong sense that he is on the edge of understanding the case, but that there are a couple of vital details still hidden. What he desperately needs is more evidence. And some witnesses. But how to find them?

  Stride slows. One of the advantages he has, not shared by his younger colleagues, is that he was born and grew up in this city. More specifically, his first posting was to an area of it that he rarely re-visits nowadays. But that does not mean he can’t drop by? For old time’s sake.

  He wheels and changes direction, walking briskly away from Scotland Yard. The mountain of paperwork that waits his attention will have to do just that. Every step Stride takes gladdens his heart. His feet are taking him back to the past, when he was a simple beat constable and knew every rut in the road and crack in a cobble.

  That was real policing. Standing in the shadows, while rain sluiced down from some gutter overhead, waiting for the sound of running footsteps that heralded the arrival of some miscreant. Or snatching a quick smoke in a doorway, with only a bright crescent moon and a patchwork of jewelled stars for company.

  Stride lets his feet do the walking once more, and eventually they take him down to the river, and deposit him at the entrance to Crutched Friars Court. All human life is here, just as it was then: coalmen, dressmakers, bakers, butchers, housepainters, labourers, builders, street-sellers, coffee vendors, Jews, Hindoo tract-sellers, and quite a bit that is inhuman too. Small undernourished children loiter in the arched alleyways and stray dogs fight over bones, and territory.

  Here, in the little labyrinths of tenements, crowded, claustrophobic and huddled up together to the exclusion of light, newly appointed Police Constable Stride first patrolled. Here, in the narrow, dark, irregular alleyways, and streets of small shops and taverns his career began. Everything he knows now was learned in this small area of the city.

  And here he is, somewhat older, walking along the same narrow pavements once again, seeing the same dirty streets and old-fashioned shop-fronts with their small panes of glass and wooden lean-tos that he remembers from those far distant days. Eventually, Stride reaches a small street of two-storey brick tenements, joined together by strings of washing.

  On the ground floor of Number 6, lives the individual he has come to consult: Mr. Percy Wozenheim, known to all as Pozzy Wozzy. In the past, when he was younger, Pozzy Wozzy was the one who had his fingers in most pies. Or if he didn’t, he knew who owned the fingers that were. Stride first met him when he was investigating the d
isappearance of a local man, and Pozzy’s help proved invaluable.

  The price of a good informer is above rubies. Now, Stride bangs on the door and waits. After several minutes, he hears slow shuffling footsteps accompanied by a rasping cough, and then a wheezy voice demands:

  “Oo’s there?”

  “Detective Inspector Leo Stride.”

  The footsteps stop. There is another pause. Then the door is laboriously opened a crack, and Stride finds himself being regarded thoughtfully by two watery pale eyes under a pair of ferocious white eyebrows that swoop across the occupant’s face like predatory eagles. The man breaks into a broad grin. Stride shudders. Looking at his teeth is like looking at old gravestones.

  “It is you. Give the door a kick would yer; it’s got the damp.”

  Stride takes a step back, then kicks open the door. He steps over the threshold, his nostrils instantly invaded by the pungent mix of overcooked cabbage, drains, strong tobacco and unwashed body. The perfume of poverty. He had forgotten that smell.

  “Long time, no see, as the one-legged sailor said to his pet parrot,” the old man says, then bends double under a spasm of coughing that sounds hardly human. When it has passed, he leads the way into a back room, where he collapses into a saggy armchair, still wheezing.

  “You should look after yourself better. Get out and breathe some fresh air, Pozzy,” Stride says, taking the armchair opposite.

  A small fire splutters helplessly in the grate. He picks up the poker and stirs it. The room serves as bedroom, sitting room and kitchen. The only light comes from a candle on the mantelpiece. Outside, the sounds of two women arguing filter through the grubby window.

  “Can’t be doing with fresh air,” the old man says, fishing a pipe out of his cardigan pocket and bending towards the flame to light a paper spill. His white hair is long and strays over his bent shoulders. His hands are swollen, the knuckles purple and twisted. But his eyes are still bright, and regard Stride with shrewd amusement as he sucks at the pipe to get it going. “Anyway, why do I need fresh air at my age? What use is a long life to me? Sooner I’m gone, the better.”

  The universal complaint of the elderly. Stride rolls his eyes.

  “So, what do you want?” the old man says. “Don’t tell me you came all this way just to ask after my health? Coz if you did, I can tell you: it ain’t any better than what it was last time you came, however long ago that was.”

  Stride reaches inside his coat and slowly draws out a long-necked brown bottle. The old man regards it with interest.

  “Got any cups, Pozzy?”

  “In the cupboard by the winder.”

  Stride helps himself to a couple of chipped cups, their stained brown interiors evidence of much strong tea drinking and precious little washing up afterwards. He runs a handkerchief round the insides, then pours two generous measures from the bottle. He hands one of the cups to the old man, who drinks it off noisily.

  “Ah, that’s the real stuff. Things are never as bad as they seem so long as there’s a drink somewhere about the place,” he declares wheezily.

  Stride glances round the room. “What happened to all the books, Pozzy?”

  “Sold ’em. Burned ’em to keep warm. Can’t read ’em anymore, coz me eyes are too weak.”

  “That’s a shame. You were a great reader, as I recall.”

  “I was a great many things, Stride. And now I’m awaiting the Great Reaper hisself. And something tells me he ain’t going to be as long in coming around to see me as you. You caught me just in time, eh?” His rusty laughter descends into another cough.

  Stride waits until the fit of coughing has passed. Then he refills the old man’s mug. “I am sorry, Pozzy. It’s the job. Paperwork, filing, reading reports. That’s modern policing for you. I rarely get out of my office nowadays.”

  “But yet here you are.”

  Stride acknowledges the implied criticism.

  “But here I am, as you rightly remark. Because I want your expert advice. I need to find out everything I can about two local men called Munro and Herbert Black. They are brothers. Used to live down this way. Names ring any bells?”

  “Ding-dong. Why?”

  “The older brother owns some gambling clubs. The younger buys and sells stuff. Some of it young and female. And they collect on other people’s debts. The older brother is a possible suspect in a robbery and a murder. He’s put the frighteners on everyone so nobody will talk to us, and we’ve not got enough evidence to pin anything on him. Yet.”

  “So you wants me to find you some pins?”

  “Can you use your influence: ask around, turn over a few stones and see what crawls out?”

  The old man chuckles. Then nearly falls off his chair as another fit of coughing seizes him.

  “Just like the old days eh?” he says, wiping his streaming eyes on his sleeve. “Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. We’ll see. Same rate of pay?”

  “Of course, Pozzy. And you can keep the bottle,” Stride gets to his feet.

  “I was going to anyway. Be in touch, then Stride. See yerself out, would yer. I got some drinking to take care of.”

  Stride heads for the door. As he leaves, he hears the sound of glass chinking on china, and a throaty sigh of contentment.

  ****

  While Detective Inspector Stride is threading his way back to civilization, another traveller is embarking upon a journey. Not upon so perilous a journey, perhaps, though for the traveller, it presents itself with various obstacles that must be overcome before the final destination is reached.

  Gerald Daubney has set off bravely from his house, armed with courage, hope and a tightly rolled umbrella. His destination ~ Mortlake and Devine. His mode of travel ~ a boneshaking hackney cab pulled by an underfed grey horse and owned by one of those cabmen who like to talk.

  Daubney huddles into his topcoat, feeling his shoulders tense. He has no interest whatsoever in guessing who the cabman had in his cab last week. Really. Yet it is just his luck to be forced to listen to a long list of individuals he has never heard of, but who are supposed to be ‘famus’.

  This desire to be noticed by people, to be hailed for some accomplishment, has always eluded him. He does not understand it. Yet almost every day he reads in the newspaper of some minor member of society, or a music hall artiste (whatever that is) who has done, or not done something. A ‘Pre-Raphaelite’ has caused a scandal by painting his friend’s mistress semi-naked in a bath. Or was he painting a bath semi-naked? An aristocrat is suing a minor woman writer of novels. The world is going quite mad.

  The horse plods slowly through the traffic. The cabman’s voice is the wallpaper to Daubney’s thoughts, which are building incrementally as the cab wheels trundle him closer to Sloane Street, finally dropping him outside the Emporium of Antique Furniture, Oriental China and Curiosities.

  Daubney is not a betting man, nor a praying man, but he is a hoping man, and it is in this frame of mind that he enters through the heavy gilt and glass doors. He glances round the shop. Thomas Mortlake is busy dealing with a customer, while Jacob Devine, a thin saturnine man with high forehead and a nose made to look down upon the world, is carefully arranging a row of Chinese porcelain ginger jars on a glass shelf.

  Daubney approaches Jacob Devine and stands at his elbow. He clears his throat. Devine turns, adopting a suitably sombre expression as he recognises who is standing in front of him.

  “Ah, good day Mr. Daubney, sir,” he says, giving a little bow, because however knowledgeable you are, dealers are men of trade but collectors are gentlemen, and if you are the former, it is profitable to recognise the latter. “May I, on behalf of Mortlake & Devine, commiserate with you in your recent tragedy. We were most upset to read the news. We await your instructions and will try to replace, as best we can, your fine collection of netsuke.”

  Daubney nods. “Yes. It is about the collection that I am here. I gather you have received some items recently from Colonel Pittkethly. I was hoping that amongs
t the items might be some netsuke. Is that the case? If so, I would like to see them.”

  Jacob Devine hesitates. “I have some of the pieces. But I do not think ...”

  Daubney cuts him off abruptly, “Let me see them, please. At once, if you would be so kind. I will wait here.”

  The dealer shrugs, goes into the back room. Daubney suddenly feels light-headed with anticipation. Or lack of nourishment. There was a pot of coffee and some rolls set out in the parlour for him earlier, but he was too eager to get here to break his fast. He feels giddy, and holds on to the edge of the shelf, while the shop and its contents spin around him.

  The dealer returns, carrying a familiar small wooden box, which he takes over to the counter. Daubney follows. Devine puts the box on the counter. Daubney picks it up, opens it, and unwraps the netsuke. It is an ugly, squat, fat frog. His face falls. His heart dives.

  “But this is an inferior piece. The carving is crude. The wood is poor quality and there is no maker’s mark on the bottom.”

  “I’m afraid this is the type of stuff we get brought in by amateurs,” Devine says. “I think the local population just sell them anything, as they know people in the West will buy it. Japanese and Chinese objects are all the rage at the moment. The true collector, like yourself, would spurn such pieces. I did try to alert you, sir.”

  Daubney’s spirits sink. He had such high hopes. Now they have been dashed. He passes a weary hand across his brow. Then, gathering all his inner strength, he turns and heads for the street. Reaching the shop door, he becomes aware that his name is being called. It is Mortlake, now customer-free.

  “Mr. Daubney, sir! How good to see you! How are you faring?”

  Daubney gives him a stare that goes on a little longer than socially acceptable.

  “I am as you see me.”

  Mortlake raises an eyebrow fractionally. “I am sorry to hear it, Mr. Daubney, sir. Indeed so. And to read of your great tragedy. Your collection of netsuke was one of the finest in London. But maybe, all is not lost. Only the other week I was talking to a detective from Scotland Yard who was here in the emporium making inquiries on your behalf.”