[The Victorian Detectives 08] - Fame & Fortune

by Carol Hedges

  ****

  The discovery of the truth is currently the focus of Greig and Cully’s attention. Here they are standing next to a makeshift bed in one of the whitewashed interview rooms. On the bed lies the man who isn’t dead. A fire has been lit, and Robertson, the police surgeon, is gently probing various of the man’s orifices with a steel instrument.

  “Interesting,” he says, straightening up from his brief examination. “Your man was lucky the temperature dropped last night to near freezing, causing his blood to clot, and thus preventing him from bleeding to death. And it lowered his heart rate, making him go into a state of suspended animation. Of course, you are both familiar with the three forms of suspended animation: syncope, asphyxia and trance? No? I am happy to enlighten you, if you so wish.”

  “Could you, perhaps, just tell us when we might expect this man to wake up,” Cully says hastily.

  Robertson purses his lips. “Of course, there is always the fourth form ~ wherein the subject deliberately brings on a state of apparent death. I refer to the case of the Honourable Colonel Townsend, who claimed he could, by an act of will, expire and then come to life again, though in this case before me, I think the judicious application of a scalpel … here … might be aidant and remediate in the recovery process.”

  Sure enough, as he pokes a scalpel into the man’s side, the detectives see the man’s fingers twitch convulsively. Then his breathing becomes louder and his eyelids begin to flicker.

  “Ah. And there you go, gentlemen,” Robertson nods complacently. “From death unto life.” He packs his instruments away into their velvet-lined case. “Mind you, I have always thought that the case of Townsend should be taken cum grano selis. And the state of trance is usually only seen in females. On that note, having fulfilled my duties, I leave you to your interrogation. Ego sum dominus mortis, as it were. Shame the good detective inspector was not able to grace us with his presence. I think this is one he would rather have enjoyed. Oh well.”

  He gives them a small formal bow, then walks out of the room. Cully and Greig sigh in unison, before turning their focus upon the man, who is slowly regaining consciousness. As they watch, his eyes open, his tongue moistens his lips. He moves his head very slowly, groans, and stares round the room, his gaze finally coming to rest on the two detectives, at the sight of whom he swears copiously.

  “Ow ~ my ’ead hurts. And where the hell am I?” he says, levering himself painfully up on his elbows.

  “Good morning, sir,” Greig says affably. “You are currently a guest of Scotland Yard’s detective division. This is one of the holding cells. I am Detective Inspector Greig; this is Detective Sergeant Cully. And your name is?”

  The man sits up. He is a hefty-built type, who probably couldn’t run fast, but could hand out a beating without breaking into a sweat. His eyes are cold and hard, his mouth a vicious tear. He stares at them.

  “I ain’t saying nothing.”

  “Really, sir? You cannot remember your own name? Shall I send for the doctor again?” Greig suggests, lifting his eyebrows fractionally.

  “You can send for the Queen of England for all I care.”

  “If you are unable to remember your name, maybe you won’t ‘remember’ where you were last night? Let me jog your memory,” Cully says, folding his arms. “A certain livery stable in St Johns Wood? You broke in, armed with a knife and with intent to commit a murder.”

  The man notices his bandaged hand. He lifts it to his face and examines it. “What the …?”

  “You were attacked by a dog. It was defending its master from you.”

  Something dark and unpleasant flits across the man’s face. He mutters under his breath.

  “I’m sorry, sir, I did not quite catch that,” Greig says, smiling pleasantly.

  “I said vicious dogs like that oughter be put down.”

  “Ah ~ so you DO remember the dog. Excellent. Now we are making progress. Mr. …?”

  The man clamps his lips together.

  “Still no memory? Perhaps the name Munro Black might bring it back?

  A flicker of fear appears momentarily behind the hard eyes. And disappears leaving only blankness.

  “This Mr. Black, whose name you do not recognise, is wanted for various crimes and misdemeanours. You are quite sure you have never heard of him? You don’t know him? You never met up with him at the Ship Inn? No? Strange, because we can produce several witnesses who say they saw you both there,” Greig presses on. “Including the lad you attempted to murder last night.”

  The man stares fixedly at the opposite wall, as if his gaze could bore an escape-hole in it.

  “Shall we do that, sir? Shall we ask our witnesses to come in and identify you? Better still, maybe we could ask Mr. Munro Black to come down to Scotland Yard and take a look at you for himself. We might suggest to him that, having failed to carry out his request to attack one of our witnesses, and to save your own skin, you told us who was behind the attack. Then, we could release you, and wait to see what he chooses to do. Might that ‘help’ you to remember your name, and other things?”

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “Ah, detective sergeant: he speaks!”

  “He does indeed, detective inspector. Now, I’m sure he’d appreciate a cup of tea. Let us send for one. I suggest we also ask one of the day constables to trot round to Russell Square.” Cully says. “You’d like a cup of tea, wouldn’t you, Mr. …?”

  “Albert Norris.”

  “Mr. Norris. Your memory has returned! I shall make a note of that,” Greig goes through an elaborate pantomime with a notebook and pencil. “And your address, Mr. Norris?”

  “I’m temp’rily between lodgings.”

  “We are getting on famously, Mr. Norris. So, before we send for that cup of tea, and my officer pays that morning call upon Mr. Black … let us return to the night of September the 2nd. The place: The Ship Inn. Cast your mind back to that night, Mr. Norris, and let us see what you now recall.”

  ****

  Detective Inspector Stride is attacking a plate of food in a back booth at Sally’s Chop House, when a shadow falls across his plate. Looking up, he sees the tall figure of Detective Inspector Lachlan Greig, who eases himself onto the opposite bench. “Here you are,” he says.

  Stride mutters words to the effect that it is lunchtime, so where else would he be? He moves a small chop around with his knife. He is not in a good place (metaphorically). It has now been several days since Pozzy Wozzy was reported missing, and there still hasn’t been any sighting of him. Stride doesn’t feel good about it. There is an awful lot of London for an old man to get lost in, and a lot of people who might want to help him do it. One in particular springs to mind.

  Stride has sent a description of Pozzy round all the local police offices, asking the beat constables to check alleyways and doorways for an old man. They have. No old man answering Pozzy’s description has been found. Other old men, yes. Many of them dead or dying. The nights are turning cold. Stride is trying to console himself with the thought that if no actual body has turned up, then his former informer must still be alive, somewhere.

  Greig ignores his colleague’s downcast manner. “I am the bearer of good news,” he says.

  “They’ve found him?” Stride leans eagerly forward in his seat.

  Greig frowns, “Found who?”

  Stride sighs. So Pozzy has not turned up. He signals to Sally to clear his plate. He has suddenly lost his appetite.

  “Let me tell you who we have got in custody,” Greig says. “Finally, we have the breakthrough we’ve all been waiting for.” He describes the interview with Mr. Albert Norris, Munro Black’s enforcer. “We now know both men were in the Ship Inn on the night James Flashley died. We also know they met him later that evening. Norris told us that when they met up, Flashley was carrying a sack ~ he does not know what was in it, he says. According to Norris, Black and Flashley got into an argument about debts and money, at which point, he says, he decided he�
�d had enough and left.”

  “And you believe his story?”

  “Up until the leaving part. We know Flashley didn’t hang himself from that scaffolding, and it would take more than one man to string him up. We have no proof Albert Norris was involved, but his presence at the livery stable, and his attempt to finish off young Brixston gives us enough to keep him locked up, and eventually charged for attempted murder.”

  “Good work,” Stride says. “Yes. And where do we go from here?”

  “I suggest we drop a hint to the newspapers that we have received new evidence and are on the point of making an arrest in the Bridge Murder case. That might flush Black out of his lair. It will certainly get him worried, and worried men are inclined to make mistakes.”

  Stride nods. “It is worth a try. But we still have no witnesses who place him at the murder scene itself. Nobody who saw him tie that rope round Flashley’s neck and string him up. What he did before, or even after, is of no account. It is all circumstantial. We need hard evidence; that is the only thing a judge and jury are interested in. No hard evidence, and we might as well throw in the towel.”

  They sit in silence for a while. Then,

  “Was there anything else?” Stride asks.

  Greig shakes his head. Pauses. Seems to hesitate, works his mouth for a while, then stands up. “No. I shall see you back at Scotland Yard? You might care to interview Mr. Norris for yourself. Perhaps you can elicit something from him that he was reluctant to tell us.”

  Privately, Stride doubts this. “I can try, certainly. But it will not change where we are. We have the monkey, Lachlan, but the organ-grinder is still free to pursue his trade. The game is not over yet.”

  “Indeed, it is not. I gather that chess-players have a particular name for this stage,” Greig says thoughtfully. “I cannot now quite recall what it is.”

  “A waste of time?” Stride grunts. He does not play chess.

  “The endgame. That is what it is called. We are in the endgame.”

  Later, after questioning Albert Norris and eliciting nothing further from him than his food preferences, Stride decides to call it a day. It is clear that the threat of reprisals from his employer are so real that Norris is not prepared to admit to playing any part in the murder of Flashley.

  He has confessed to the attempted silencing of Brixton, but on all other counts, his lips are sealed. Stride also has the distinct impression that Albert Norris would far rather be tucked up in a police cell, than walking the streets as a free man.

  It demonstrates, clearly, the power and control that Munro Black exerts on all those whom he employs, Stride thinks. Which means the sooner they rid the city of his malign presence, the better for all concerned. He sends up a silent prayer that a certain cantankerous old man and his cough have not fallen into his evil clutches.

  ****

  Izzy Harding walks the streets of the greatest city on earth. The day has worn itself away. Twilight advances; the lights begin to start up in shops. The lamplighter, with his ladder, runs along the margin of the pavement. Izzy walks and walks, until the moon and stars are bright in the cold black sky above her.

  It has been a strange day. A difficult day. A day that started out in the usual way ~ she woke in the cold crepuscular dawn to the familiar smell of rot, filth and bacon being fried for her landlady’s numerous progeny.

  She turned over to find an empty space beside her, where her mother had been. Izzy had felt under her mattress, relieved when her fingers touched the shiny brass button, the length of bright scarlet ribbon, the sheet of gold leaf, the six farthings, the miniature dolls’ tea-set, the green velvet pincushion and the silver sixpence.

  She’d got up, rubbed sleep out of her eyes, combed her hair and tied it with the scarlet ribbon because today was going to be a special day. She left the lodging house and set off for the dolls’ furniture workshop. Once again, the city had been her library: Author Accused in Copyright Caper ~ Case Dismissed! she’d read on a newspaper seller’s board. Passing a dining room, she’d read a sign for Leg of Beef Soup, 2d per bowl.

  A poster for Madam Tussauds was slightly less reassuring, as it invited passers-by to visit the Chamber of Horrors to see a portrait model of ‘William Fish, The Blackburn Murderer’. She had hurried past that one, head averted.

  Izzy had paused by the small shoeblack, who’d recently appeared on her walk to work, pitching his box and brushes by a convenient wall. His sign: Brushup and Polish for 1/3d and his cheerful whistling blended almost seamlessly into her daily morning route. The boy had lifted his cap and they’d exchanged a few words of greeting before Izzy plodded on.

  Izzy reached the Colonnade just as the church clock was striking the half-hour. All along the street, shutters were being taken down, doorsteps were being sluiced or swept, and small trestle tables were being brought out and erected, ready to be piled with goods for sale.

  She spotted a wooden box of oranges on a table outside the small greengrocer’s shop. The shop owner was not around. Izzy had hesitated, then she’d dipped a hand in and grabbed one. The fruit was soft and oozy. She’d bitten a hole in the peel and sucked on it, letting the sweet juice fill her mouth. It was a long way to suppertime.

  Reaching the small alleyway that ran alongside the confectioner’s shop, ending at the back in the rickety iron staircase to the first floor, she’d been surprised to see a couple of her fellow painters sitting on the steps.

  “Can’t get in,” one of the painters had informed her laconically.

  “Door’s locked,” another added.

  “Been kicking it,” Izzy’s nemesis said, glaring at Izzy as if it were her fault.

  Izzy’d placed herself on the bottom step, fished the orange out of her pocket and continued making inroads into it. Time passed. The girl overseer arrived, tried the door, leaned her weight against it, then shrugged and walked away. The hour struck, then the quarter-hour. Eventually the half-hour struck. Then the next hour. They waited for her to come back. She didn’t come back.

  Izzy’s legs were getting cold. She rose and went down to the confectioner’s shop on the ground floor, where she inquired politely whether the woman behind the counter knew what had happened to the people renting the upstairs space. The woman looked at her pityingly.

  “They cleared off, my duck. Did a moonlight flit. Owed the landlord rent. Was you one of the painters?”

  Izzy nodded dumbly.

  “Well, I’m sorry for you. But there’s no point hanging around here. They’ve gone, and they ain’t coming back and that’s all there is to it. What I heard was they were going up north ~ Manchester, coz it’s cheaper to rent a property and they can pay lower wages.” She eyed Izzy’s downcast face. “Here, have a sweet. Cheer you up. Don’t fret. There’s plenty of other jobs for a bright girl like you.”

  Izzy returned and conveyed the dispiriting news to her co-workers. There were a few tears from some of the smaller ones, for whom life’s disappointments were still novel. The rest shuffled resignedly down the stairs and dispersed to various parts of the city. Izzy would never see them again.

  The orange and the sweet kept her going for the rest of the day. A long day, in which Izzy Harding was turned away from job after job. It appeared that nobody wanted a small work-slave to clean, sweep, run errands, mind babies, hold horses, or carry parcels.

  It seemed she had entered an over-crowded market. Flower-sellers told her there wasn’t room for another girl. Street-sweepers shook their heads and said all the pitches were taken. Costers told her they only employed their own, and she wasn’t. Other possible employers took one look at her frayed and worn work clothes and her forlorn bonnet, and pinch-poor face, and shook their heads.

  After hours of knock-backs, Izzy finally arrived at the kitchen entrance to Mrs Sarah McAdam’s Select City Dining Room. She was exhausted from walking the streets of the city, asking at every shop and business whether they needed a good reliable worker.

  She found her apron, pulled
the stool up to the deep butler sink, and began to tackle the mountain of greasy plates. Occasionally, she slid a piece of discarded chop rind into her mouth. The act of chewing gave the impression that she was eating, even though what was in her mouth provided little nourishment and was soon spat out.

  Izzy tried to find some positives in her situation. She reminded herself that she had a roof over her head for now, which was a blessing, given the state of some of the homeless children she saw every day, gathered around some workmen’s brazier, warming their blue hands, their clothes ragged and unwashed.

  And she had family ~ when it chose to turn up. A job would materialize sooner or later, because she would keep on looking until it did. Meanwhile, the steam from the kitchen was warm and comforting, and there was the prospect of something to eat when she finished the washing up.

  At the end of her shift, Izzy had received her usual wages of leftover bread. She wrapped it in her apron, together with some leftover pie from a dinner plate, which she hid while nobody was looking, then slipped out of the back door, darting up the dark alleyway like a scrawny stray cat.

  And now here she is, her meagre supper consumed, making her way to her teacher’s house. It is not a class night, but Izzy feels the need for some sympathetic company. Preferably with a cup of hot sugared tea, cake, and a warm-up by the kitchen range. Her teacher always manages to make her feel optimistic about her future. Right now, she needs all the optimism she can get.

  Izzy passes the church, with its rows of gravestones pointing to the sky, then stops outside Maria Barklem’s cottage. The blinds are all drawn down. There is a black ribbon bow on the door knocker, all unmistakable signals that someone in the house has died. For a second, her heart stands still, then she recalls mention of her teacher’s elderly infirm mother, remembers a tea tray being born aloft.

  Izzy stands outside the house for a while, trying to imagine what it must be like to lose your mother. For all her faults, her mother has been a constant, if erratic, presence. She could not imagine life without the sense of her mother’s body, smelling of tobacco and beer and cheap scent, lying next to her on their shared mattress.