by Emily Organ
We hailed a hansom cab, which took us beneath the South Eastern Railway lines to Jamaica Road. The small seat didn’t allow much room between me and James, and when the carriage jolted over the bumps in the road my shoulder knocked into his. I was close enough to smell the pleasant scent of his eau-de-cologne. There were only eighteen days to go until his wedding. Did he really intend to go through with it?
“Are you all right, Penny?”
“Quite fine, thank you. Why do you ask?”
“You sighed just then.”
“Did I? I didn’t realise I had. How are the wedding plans progressing?”
“You’re thinking about the wedding and that made you sigh?”
I turned to look at him. “Does that surprise you?”
“No,” he replied, holding my gaze. “It makes me sigh too. Every moment of my spare time is taken up with discussions about the day. So much so that it’s a relief to be investigating these murders instead.”
I laughed. “You prefer murder to marriage?”
James laughed in response. “Of course not! That sounds… Well, I’m not sure at all really. What a question!” He rubbed at his brow, and I thought of confronting him about his feelings for Charlotte and for me. It was a conversation that I felt I needed to have with him before the wedding, but I was struggling to summon up the courage.
A photographer in Jamaica Road said that he had not come across the Peels himself but suggested another shop in nearby Paradise Street. The photographer at Paradise Street told us he could find no record of the Peels but had received word that a young woman matching Mrs Curran’s description had been staying at The Angel pub down by the river.
“It may be nothing,” said James as we left the photographer’s studio, “but as The Angel is only a short walk away there seems to be no harm in investigating it. Here’s the Paradise Street police station. Let’s call in and find out if there’s been any mention of a sighting.”
A constable inside the station told James that the parish constable, Lopes, would know more, and that he was currently in position at The Angel. We walked down narrow Cathay Street between the tall wall of a granary and a line of grimy, terraced houses.
The Angel sat on the riverfront at the end of a row of wharves. To one side of it were steep steps that led down to the Thames.
“Smells like the tide’s out,” I said, wrinkling my nose at the stink wafting up from the mudflats.
A small, scruffy boy lingered at the top of the steps and a man with his hands in his pockets observed us as we paused to cross the road opposite the pub. Heavily loaded carts passed by, the horses sweating in the heat.
Inside The Angel we found Parish Constable Lopes sitting at a table beside a paned window which overlooked the river. He was laughing and joking with a group of men as we approached.
The parish constable hurriedly stood to his feet when James introduced himself, he swiftly dusted off his helmet and placed it back on his head. He was a brown-haired man with bushy whiskers and some considerable girth.
“A lady news reporter, eh?” said Lopes. “Times are a-changing, aren’t they, Inspector?”
“They certainly are,” replied James. “Can you tell me if you’ve heard anything about the woman who is believed to be staying here?”
“Believed to have stayed here. She’s gone now, sir.”
James cursed beneath his breath. “Do you have any idea where she was headed?” he asked.
“No.”
“Did you see or speak to her at all?”
“No, I only heard about her. Landlord Figgins knows more.”
“And where’s he?”
Lopes looked over at the bar and raised his hand in the direction of a man with sharp features who was keeping a keen eye on us. On seeing Lopes’ gesture he walked over to join us.
James introduced himself to the landlord. “Perhaps you can tell us about this young woman, Mr Figgins.”
“I dunno if she’s the one yer lookin’ for. She stayed ’ere these past two nights.”
“Did she tell you her name?”
“Jane.”
“The same name Mrs Hardy told me!” I said. “That’s the woman she stayed with on the Old Kent Road.”
“Did she give a surname?” James asked the landlord.
“Taylor, I think she said,” replied Figgins.
“So Jane Taylor stayed here on the nights of the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth of August?” asked James.
Figgins nodded.
“Did she tell you anything about herself?”
“Said she’s escapin’ a bad ’usband.”
“Did she give you any indication of where she had come from or where she was going to?”
Figgins shook his head. “Nope.”
“Did you believe her story about the husband?”
Figgins shrugged. “I ’ad no reason not ter. Pretty little thing, she was. She don’t deserve to be treated bad.”
“Did she pay you for her board?”
“Yeah, three shillin’s.”
“And there was nothing about her conduct which made you suspicious?”
“None. Shame she ain’t stayed longer, then you could’ve asked ’er yerself. I don’t think she’s the poisoner, but some folk think she looked like ’er, and one of ’em told Lopes ’ere so.”
“What time did she leave this morning?”
“’Bout six.”
“And you don’t know where she was headed?”
“No idea. She tells me she can’t stay nowhere too long in case the ’usband finds ’er, an’ I believes ’er! Girl like that wouldn’t do no ’arm to no one.”
“That’s the skill of these people,” replied James. “If they were to walk around looking like murderers they wouldn’t get far, would they?” He turned to face the parish constable. “When were you planning to tell your superior about the girl, Lopes?”
The constable looked uneasy. “After me drink, sir. I was about to send word to Bermondsey Street.”
“When did you first hear that the girl was staying here?”
“I heard talk of it yesterday, sir, but I thought it unlikely that it was the same woman. I suppose I was guided by Figgins, sir. He didn’t seem to think it was her.”
James scowled. “You didn’t feel the need to investigate, even though it’s your job to keep an eye out for such things? You know that a murderess is on the run from the police and you don’t feel the need to investigate reports of a mysterious young woman staying in a pub just two hundred yards from your police station?”
“I didn’t think a murderess would choose to lodge two hundred yards from a police station, sir.”
“It seems she must have assumed you would think that way. She’s made a fool of you, Lopes. Here she was right under your nose and you did nothing about it!”
“We ain’t got no proof it was ’er!” protested Figgins.
“From this moment on, all solitary young women who match her description must be considered!” fumed James. “The very worst that can happen is that we offend a young lady who is busy minding her own business. We could have spoken to this Jane Taylor and quickly ascertained whether she was our Catherine Curran or not. Now she’s slipped through our fingers and who knows where she’ll turn up? She could have hopped onto a boat out there for all we know,” he added, pointing at the river through the window. “Perhaps that’s why she chose this pub, because of its proximity to the Thames.”
“Yer don’t often see a girl like ’er on a boat. Folk would suspect summink,” said Figgins.
“She’s capable of bribery,” said James. “We know she’s collected a fair bit of money from the life insurance policies. Now put your beer down, Lopes, and rally as many men as you can to get out there looking for her. Maybe she has remained local. She seems to have been keen to stay in this area until now, so let’s do everything we can to find her!”
I followed James as he marched out of the pub.
“Hopeless!” he said once
we were out on the street. “Completely hopeless!”
“It has to be her,” I said. “The story she told the landlord about running away from her husband is the exact same story she told the lady on the Old Kent Road.”
“It can only be her,” agreed James. “And to think that we could have caught her if we’d known!”
Chapter 13
I travelled back to the Morning Express offices that afternoon, first by horse tram, then via the Tower Subway and finally on an omnibus to Fleet Street. While sitting on the omnibus I drafted another appeal for information on the whereabouts of Catherine Curran. I hoped that I would be able to persuade Mr Sherman to publish it in a prominent position so that as many people would see it as possible.
I felt sure that Catherine couldn’t have gone far. Although it was conceivable that she had secured herself passage on a boat, she had so far remained in Bermondsey. I hoped this meant that she preferred to stay within an area she knew well.
There was a suggestion that something out of the ordinary had occurred when I discovered Mr Conway’s large frame blocking the corridor to the newsroom at the Morning Express offices. Despite being the newspaper’s proprietor, it was unusual for him to pay us a visit.
His trousers, jacket and waistcoat were of a baggy brown tweed, and his wavy grey hair sprawled into a pair of long, bushy side-whiskers. He was accompanied by a young, narrow-faced, pale-haired man holding a bundle of papers.
“Miss Green, isn’t it?” Mr Conway wheezed.
“Yes. Good afternoon, sir.”
“I suppose you’re wanting to get past.” He looked around, as if trying to locate a wider section of corridor. He grunted, then made his way toward the doorway of Mr Sherman’s office. I walked past him and his assistant, thanking them as I did so.
It was unusually quiet in the newsroom, and to my surprise I found Miss Welton, Mr Sherman’s secretary, sitting with Edgar and Frederick. She was fidgeting with the high collar of her woollen dress, staring glumly through the pince-nez clipped to her nose.
“Something’s happened,” I said cautiously. “What’s happened? Why’s Mr Conway here?”
“Mr Sherman’s been arrested,” said Edgar quietly. His face looked pale.
For a brief moment I felt the need to laugh, as if he had told me a joke. But the seriousness of his expression assured me this was no laughing matter.
“Arrested?” I asked. “What could he possibly have done?”
“They won’t tell us.”
“But when?” I asked. “And who arrested him?”
“It was last night,” replied Edgar. “I don’t know where he was or what he was doing; that’s all we’ve been told. It was T Division in Kensington, I believe.”
“We should go down there and find out what’s happening.”
“That was my idea too, Miss Green, but Conway has forbidden it. He knows more than he’s letting on.”
“I cannot understand the secrecy.”
I realised as soon as the words had left my mouth that there might be a valid reason as to why the details of his arrest had been kept secret. The memory of the confidential matter he had imparted to me during our walk in Lincoln’s Inn Fields earlier in the summer came back to my mind and my stomach gave a sickening flip.
“Sit down, Miss Green,” he said. “You look shocked.”
“I am,” I replied, slowly lowering myself onto a chair. “Poor Mr Sherman. He must feel so humiliated; so frightened.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Edgar. “None of us has any idea what has happened.”
I glanced across at Edgar, Frederick and Miss Welton, realising they had no idea about Mr Sherman’s secret life.
“We’ve been considering the possibility that he got himself into a fight,” suggested Frederick.
“It’s difficult to imagine, but a possibility all the same,” I said.
“He would never get into a fight,” said Miss Welton. “Mr Sherman wouldn’t harm a soul. He wouldn’t do anything wrong at all. I simply don’t understand it.”
“I’d like to know where he was when he was arrested,” said Frederick. “Was he at home or somewhere he shouldn’t have been? A bank, for example.”
“Perhaps he was robbing it!” laughed Edgar.
“This is no laughing matter!” said Miss Welton, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief.
“I suppose we shall find out in due course,” I said sadly. “In the meantime, how is the morning’s edition going to be printed?”
“We shall all have to work together on it,” said Edgar. “Mr Conway has already told us it can be a slimmer edition on this occasion.”
“But how will the compositors know what they’re doing?” I asked.
“The chief one, Smith, is pretty good. He’s already laid out a lot of it,” said Edgar. “In fact, I should get back down there and find out how it’s coming along. We just need to decide where the main stories will go.”
“Do you have any idea what Mr Sherman was planning to lead with tomorrow?” I asked.
“Well it seems France and China are now at war after the sea battle near Fuzhou,” said Edgar. “I think that should be the lead story, but Frederick reckons the prime minister’s visit to Scotland should go before it.”
“So we’re already in disagreement on that,” I said.
“Let’s ask Mr Conway which he’d prefer,” said Edgar.
“I was going to ask Mr Sherman if we could publish an appeal regarding Catherine Curran’s whereabouts,” I said.
“We can do that,” said Edgar. “Have you written it?”
“Yes, it’s two hundred words. I’ve included the details of when and where she was last seen.”
“Right then, let’s get on with it,” said Edgar, rolling up his shirt sleeves. “Let’s make Sherman and Conway proud.”
The newsroom door opened and Mr Conway entered with the young, narrow-faced man.
“This is Crispin Childers of the West London Mercury,” he announced. “He’s a competent chap and just happens to be my nephew. He’ll be taking over the reins here for the time being.”
We stared in silence at the new arrival. His hair was so pale it was almost white, and his insignificant chin made him appear much younger than his years.
“Your nephew, sir?” said Edgar. “I can’t see any obvious family resemblance.”
I suppressed a chuckle as I surveyed the difference between our oversized, tweed-wearing proprietor and the thin, insipid-looking man standing next to him.
“I think we can manage, Mr Conway, sir,” said Frederick. “We’ve all worked on the Morning Express for a number of years.”
“Nonsense,” puffed the proprietor. “Childers here can see to the editing while you get on with your news reporting. I need to go and instruct my lawyers to ensure that Mr Sherman gets the best defence a chap can get in the whole of London. Now introduce yourselves to one another and get on with it.”
Edgar and I exchanged a doleful glance.
My despondent mood was worsened by the group of reporters I found loitering outside the office that evening. Unfortunately, the Morning Express had become a news story in itself. I looked down at my feet and marched along Fleet Street to find an omnibus, but I wasn’t quick enough to escape my constant nemesis Tom Clifford from rival newspaper The Holborn Gazette. He grinned as his slack jaw turned over a piece of tobacco.
“Is this the end for the Morning Express, Miss Green?”
“Not at all.”
I continued walking but he followed behind me.
“No chance of Sherman gettin’ his job back after this, is there?”
I shrugged, as if to pretend that I knew for sure what he had been arrested for.
“A total embarrassment, ain’t it?” continued Clifford.
“Why?”
“Oh, come on, Miss Green! Arrested at the Hammam Turkish Baths on Jermyn Street with all them other men. Solicitin’ to commit an unnatural offence!” He laughed. “That won’t d
o for a newspaper editor, will it? They’ve arrested a lawyer an’ all!” He laughed again. “Disgustin’, it is. They should all hang for it.”
I spun around in anger. “Don’t be ridiculous!” I hissed. “Mr Sherman hasn’t harmed anyone!”
“It’s indecency, Miss Green. And it’s morally wrong!”
“You’re a fine one to comment on other people’s morals,” I snarled, turning away and looking for a cab to whisk me away from there as quickly as possible.
“But I ain’t goin’ around committin’ unnatural acts, Miss Green,” he called after me. “An’ he’s supposed to be a professional man!”
Chapter 14
Police Raid on the Hammam Turkish Baths, Jermyn Street
A raid was carried out at the Hammam Turkish Baths on Jermyn Street just before 11p.m. on Monday 25th August. Police had received viable information that behaviour of an improper nature was taking place on the premises. Upon investigation, it was found that the suspicion was justified, and police officers duly arrested more than a dozen men.
Private information had been sent to Chief Constable Herbert Granger of Vine Street police station in February of this year, and he immediately commenced inquiries relating to the baths. Constables in plain clothes attended on frequent occasions and witnessed what appeared to be immoral activity.
At eight o’clock on Monday evening two constables attended the baths incognito once again. However, on this occasion Chief Constable Granger waited outside, accompanied by a dozen constables. After witnessing further morally questionable behaviour, the two plain-clothes constables left the baths and informed Chief Constable Granger, who entered the premises with his constables. He explained the intentions of the raid to the owner, Mr. Patrick Caulfield, and proceeded to arrest 13 men, who are accused of soliciting to commit an unnatural offence. Several of the men are said to be respectably connected.
The article went on to describe the subsequent appearance of the men at Marlborough Street Police Court and the bail terms given. Beneath this it listed their names, ages and occupations. I had hoped Mr Sherman’s name wouldn’t be among them, but my heart sank when I saw it: