by Carol Hedges
Cully nods.
“Ah. I see. Then I hope it is successful. If not, you can probably get 10d on the street for a half-smoked cigar of this quality.”
Cully smiles. “I’ll certainly bear it in mind. Thanks for your help, Mr Leonidas.”
As Cully turns to go, Mr Leonidas holds up a forefinger, indicating that he should wait. Then, as Cully watches, the shopkeeper picks up a small silver shovel, opens the glass-fronted display case on the counter and scoops a couple of pink strawberry creams into a twist of paper. He holds it out to Cully. “For the little ones. No, please, no charge. It is a gift.”
Cully voices his thanks.
“Please ~ my pleasure,” the Greek shop owner says. “And I shall ask my compatriots about the cigar. Maybe one of them might know something. If they do, I shall send you word.”
****
Emily Cully, wife of Jack Cully and owner of a successful dressmaking business, has got her hands full. Throughout the early summer months, she and her team of outworkers (all paid properly), have been working their fingers almost to the bone to produce the one-off light gauzy silk and satin tea dresses and ball gowns required by the clients of the up-market fashion stores they supply. No ready-made for these belles; their mamas have the money to pay for exclusivity, even if the beautiful gowns will only be worn once before being wrapped in cotton and placed in a trunk in the attic.
Now, with Autumn and Winter in mind, the same stores are requesting clothes in heavier fabrics, which are laborious to run up in hot weather. Emily is toiling over a jabot in figured velvet ~ a difficult material to work with, as it creeps. As she pushes herself to a stand, placing her hand against the base of her spine to ease the ache there, she reminds herself that before the invention of that marvel, the sewing machine, she’d have been hand-stitching much of the jacket, sitting at a wooden table in a long room in the dimly lit basement of a shop, watched over by a bullying overseer.
Emily pauses at the window, letting her mind drift back to her youth, when she was Emily Benet and, with her best friend Violet Manning, had come to London to make their fortunes sewing beautiful dresses for rich ladies. How full of hopes and dreams they were. How young and naive. She remembers Violet’s horrific murder, her body dumped in an alleyway. The bitter heartbreak that followed her friend’s death, the long hours bent over her needle, the starvation wages leading to her collapse at work.
She had been rescued by a kind workmate and fed back into life, and love, for it was through the tragedy of Violet’s murder that she met her husband, Jack Cully, who had been investigating the crime. Theirs has been a happy marriage of equals. Not a day passes when Emily doesn’t count her blessings. Two of them are currently under the table, playing with some empty bobbins.
Emily glances at the clock. It is nearly time for Jack’s return home. There is a succulent chicken pie browning in the oven, and the tiny garden has yielded fat orange carrots and a few potatoes to accompany it. She bends down and peers under the work-table.
“Violet, Primmy, Father will be home soon. If you fetch your bonnets, we can all walk to meet him.”
The girls rush to obey their mother and the little cavalcade soon sets out. Primrose is a slow and unpractised walker, tending to get diverted by stones, cracks in the pavement and weeds, so she is carried along by her sister. Emily regards her oldest daughter with satisfaction. Violet is doing well at the small school she attends. Her reading is fluent, thanks to her father who, since her birth, has always read aloud to her out of whatever discarded newspaper he finds in Stride’s office. She writes a neat hand and has shown an aptitude for figures.
Emily hopes Violet has a bright future ahead of her. Certainly not one of drudgery, eking out the pennies and wondering where the next meal will come from. That is not what she wants for her daughter. Emily has, in her secret drawer, a cutting from a newspaper advertising the opening of a girls’ public day school. She has been putting bits of her earnings aside regularly ever since Violet was born, against the day when she will be old enough to apply.
Turning the corner of the street, she spots the familiar figure in the distance. Emily waves, while the two little girls spring along the pavement, love giving their small feet wings. Jack Cully catches Primrose and tosses her into the air, to screams of delight. He ruffles Violet’s curls, then greets Emily with a smile.
“Now, there’s a welcome! Perhaps there is something in my pocket for you both? I wonder if there is?”
Violet dips her hand into his jacket pocket and lifts out the strawberry creams. Her eyes sparkle.
“Look mama! Sweets! Papa has sweets! I’m definitely going to be a detective when I grow up ~ you get given so many sweeties!”
Jack Cully smiles indulgently over the top of her head, while Emily calmly transfers the little bag to her own pocket. “You can enjoy them after your supper, Vi, not before. I don’t want you spoiling your appetite.”
The little family walks the short distance to their home. Violet chatters on about the sums she got right. Primrose bounces up and down in her father’s arms. Emily’s thoughts run ahead to the meal she is about to dish up. It is her favourite part of the day: the family seated round the table that doubles as a work space. Heads bent over their plates. And after the dishes have been washed and tidied, and the girls put to bed, Jack Cully lights his pipe and regales her with aspects of the current investigation, or Stride’s latest outburst, or else he reads to her from the newspaper while she sews.
Tonight follows the same familiar routine. Cully talks about his visit to the tobacconist and describes the young constable whose written report has impressed the two older detectives. Emily sits in the opposite chair, her hands busily smocking a tiny dress. Gradually, Cully’s attention becomes focused on what she is doing.
“I thought you weren’t making any more baby clothes for a while, Em. So ~ who is the sewing for?” His eyes suddenly widen. “Don’t say you are …”
Emily Cully shakes her head and laughs. “Your face, Jack! It’s a picture! No, this is for somebody else’s child. A close friend of mine and a colleague of yours. There now, I have given you all the ‘clues’ you need to solve it. Can you guess who?”
A look of puzzlement crosses Cully’s face. Then, enlightenment dawns. “You don’t mean, surely …”
“Yes, Josephine and Lachlan Grieg are expecting a baby. He may not have told you yet, but I knew it as soon as I saw her a few weeks ago ~ a woman always does know these things. Please pretend to be very surprised when you find out.”
“I shall genuinely be very delighted!” Jack Cully exclaims. “Lachlan is one of the finest inspectors I have ever worked with. What wonderful news! But, will she have to give up working once the baby arrives?”
“Oh, I am sure she won’t. Josephine will find some way to carry on her business, one way or another. After all, as she always says, ‘if a queen can run a country, why can’t a woman run a company?’”
Detective Sergeant Jack Cully has been happily married for many years, during which time he has learned an awful lot about women. Mainly, he has learned there is a time to speak and a time to remain silent. This is one of the latter times. Therefore, he makes no comment. He wouldn’t dare.
****
After their visit to Aunt Euphemia comes to an end, Sherborne Harbinger and his son return to their hotel rooms, where the success of the visit is described in glowing terms to Harriet and her mother. Following a disappointing luncheon in the hotel dining-room, the family sallies forth, Bradshaw in hand, to see some of the sights of London. They visit the British Museum, and view various statues of famous men, for Harbinger is determined that Hanover must be exposed to man’s greatest achievements, to give every opportunity for some of it to rub off onto him.
A request from Harriet to see ‘some statues of famous women’ is treated with dismissive scorn by the male members of the party, and after partaking of tea and cakes at a small tea-room, they return to their hotel once more, where Sherb
orne Harbinger writes to his older brother to announce his arrival in the city and request an urgent meeting to discuss Aunt Euphemia and their mutual interest in her timely demise.
Dinner is a rather silent affair, punctuated by sharp parental requests to the twins to keep their elbows off the table and not to slurp their soup. At the termination of the meal, Hanover and Harriet and the baby are dispatched to their respective rooms to prepare for bed, supervised by their mother.
As soon as they have gone, Sherborne orders a brandy, lights up a pipe and eases back into a comfortable chair. There is much to think about, mainly how to sound out his brother at their meeting on the morrow. The two have not met face to face for some time, although letters of an accusatory and unsatisfactory nature have been exchanged. At last, as the clock strikes nine, he declares to his beloved that he will take a turn about the streets before bed.
The streets of London at night are a revelation. Crowds of men and women push past him on the narrow pavements, all set upon finding pleasure in some form or another. The yellow glare from shop-windows streams out into the warm, murky air, throwing a shifting radiance across the thronged thoroughfare.
There is something eerie and ghost-like about the endless procession of faces that flit from gloom into light and back into gloom again. On every corner, brightly-lit public houses beckon with their brassy signs and raucous bonhomie. Eventually finding himself in an insalubrious part of town, Sherborne decides, on a whim, to enter a music hall.
It is not the sort of place he would usually attend, but after a day of educational sight-seeing with his sullen offspring, he feels a sudden unaccustomed desire to be among the common people and share vicariously in their simple, if vulgar, pleasures. If nothing else, it reminds him of how superior his own life is. And, hopefully, it is about to become even more superior. Harbinger settles himself at a table close to the stage, orders a drink and prepares to be disapprovingly entertained.
****
Let us step back a few hours. Having safely collected and banked the life insurance money from his fictitious client, Arthur Harbinger dismisses his clerk and closes down his desk at the Albion Mutual Providence Society. He then prepares himself for the evening ahead. Supper must be secured first of course, for Harbinger is a confirmed bachelor, preferring to shift for himself. Women, he has observed, come with a lot of bag and baggage. Ditto dresses, bonnets, shoes and other items of finery that empty the male purse.
Not for him the pleasant fireside, the doting ministrations of some Angel in the House, the patter of small childish feet, or the clutch of sticky infant hands. A solitary life means he makes his own decisions, chooses his own path, be it straight or crooked, and owes allegiance to no one, which suits him just fine.
Harbinger sets his face westward, and after a short walk, arrives at one of the pleasant eating-houses that surround the theatres and cater for those who do not choose to dine in a public house surrounded by loud noise. He selects a mutton chop with vegetables and a good claret to accompany it. Tempted, he ends his meal with a raspberry tart. Back on the street once more, replete and satisfied, he saunters back to his bachelor apartment.
The fetid London air seems to have had all the goodness breathed out of it. Even the flâneurs seem languid and almost indifferent to their surroundings. Harbinger plans to spend the hours until bedtime smoking his pipe and reading the evening newspapers.
But before this can happen, there is a letter on the mantelpiece awaiting his attention. He recognises the familiar handwriting of his younger brother Sherborne. With a sigh, he slits open the envelope and extracts the sheet of cheapish writing paper. As he reads, the frown between his eyebrows deepens and his jaw tightens.
One of the main benefits for Harbinger of his almost hermetic existence is the severance of all familial ties. The last time he saw his brother and younger sister was at the funeral of their father. He has exchanged correspondence with Sherborne upon business matters concerning the paternal Will and such like, but he has not set eyes upon him since that day, although he has made sure he is kept abreast of what his brother gets up to. Of his sister, he has no knowledge whatsoever, other than the recollection of a slender young woman dressed in black, snuffling in an unattractive way under a veil, while some clergyman told lies about the closeness of their family.
But now, his relatives must come crashing into his world, unasked and unwelcome. He will be forced to be agreeable to people he does not care about, fawn upon children he regards with disapprobation. He has spent the past few weeks carefully cultivating Aunt Euphemia Harbinger, with an eye to inheriting her considerable wealth. He did not imagine that she would go behind his back and write to Sherborne and Wilhelmina.
If only he had suspected her intentions, he might have saved her the trouble by informing her that both siblings had perished in a fire. Or a train crash. Or had emigrated. Arthur Harbinger takes up his pen and with a weary sigh of resignation, replies to his brother’s letter. Resentment seethes through every line and by the end of the short missive, it is as much as he can do to sign his name. He thrusts the letter into his pocket and heads out to find the nearest post box, muttering a curse upon the recipient as he does so.
****
Night wears on until eventually, dawn arrives. It is a bright summer morning, and the clocks of the city are all striking nine as Miss Lucy Landseer, a handsome young woman with deep blue eyes and hair the colour of untamed treacle, stands outside Number 122A, Baker Street, admiring the shiny new brass plate that adorns the brickwork. ‘L. Landseer, Private Consulting Detective’ it reads, and in lower letters underneath: ‘Discretion is our watchword’. She reaches into her satchel, pulls out a white cotton handkerchief, and gives the brass plate a quick polish.
Then, nodding her approval, she turns the key to Number 122A, Baker Street and lets herself in. The hallway, which is communal, has a shiny side table for business cards and a silver dish to contain them. It also features a couple of chairs for clients to wait, and a grandfather clock that ticks but is always forty-three minutes late. The black and white floor tiles are spotless, for Mr Macready, who owns the building and rents out rooms, is a stickler for cleanliness, which is, in his opinion, on an even higher plane than Godliness.
It was one of the things that made Lucy decide to set up her business here. That and the proximity of Baker Street underground station. Clients needed to feel that they were visiting a respectable person who would help them solve their problems and first impressions were vital for establishing this. Plus, the closeness of the underground meant that they could arrive and slip away discreetly.
Lucy Landseer mounts the stairs to the first floor, stopping before a door labelled ‘Consulting Room’. Here she is. She unlocks the door and enters, untying her bonnet and hanging it on one of the wall pegs, along with her outdoor coat. A shaft of pale morning sunlight slides in, painting the desk, the typing machine, the letter rack, the cliental chair (gold painted and padded with crimson velvet), her own chair (wooden and unpadded) and the portrait of some august female worthy whom she discovered in one of the small curio shops opposite the British Museum. She sits down on her chair, places her elbows on her desk and rests her small chin in her cupped hands.
Lucy Landseer has come a very long way from the wide-eyed young woman, barely out of her teens, who arrived in the great city of London with sufficient funds to support herself for a year. But Lucy’s plan, to make a living as a writer, has succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. Writing as the Silver Quill, her witty observations on London life won her a regular column in All the Year Round, and praise from its famous editor. This was followed by her first novel, a sensational tale of foreign love and tragedy (about which she knew nothing), which garnered some good reviews.
But it is her latest venture that has prompted her to set up in business on her own. A monthly series of stories featuring Belle Batchelor, the daring female private detective, and her faithful canine sidekick Harris, have caught the public imagin
ation to such an extent that the publishing house has been regularly inundated with letters pleading for Belle’s help in solving various personal problems.
On the day the Metropolitan Police had to be called to clear the crowd of desperate supplicants from its door, her publisher suggested, slightly tongue-in-cheek, that Miss Landseer should consider setting up as a real female private detective as she obviously had a talent for it. It was meant as an ironic comment, but the remark struck a chord deep inside her.
Over supper with her Cambridge professor (the man she shares a house with, but isn’t married to quite yet), the chord became a full-blown symphony. Premises were quickly sought. Furniture rapidly hired. Business cards speedily commissioned, and advertisements placed in all the most and some of the less most respectable newspapers.
And now here she is. The chimneys breathe out songs of smoke, the horses’ hooves strike the cobbles in response, the cries of street-sellers twine and writhe like strings of bright beads. The world is full of sounds and wonder. And, if she is not mistaken, a carriage has just pulled up outside.
Lucy clasps her hands together as she waits to see who alights from the carriage, and whether they have come to consult her, the draper downstairs, or the bespoke dressmaker who occupies the floor above. She does not have to wait long. The doorbell rings. There is a pattering of feet as the little maid who is employed to sweep, clean the front step, and answer the door, performs one of her duties.
She hears the dulcet, low tones of a woman. Then footsteps climb the stairs and halt outside her door. There is a light knock. Lucy rises and goes to greet her first client, a heavily veiled woman dressed in full mourning.