by David Field
‘You’d be very welcome,’ Carlyle said.
Matthew’s eyes glinted as he confirmed, ‘I’d like that very much.’
‘However,’ Adelaide replied with a verbal bucket of cold water, ‘we couldn’t afford the suggestion that you and I were somehow emotionally entangled, so forget that.’
‘Don’t you have a brother?’ Carlyle reminded him.
Matthew nodded. ‘Yes, I do — my younger brother Charles, who’s employed in the family business, so perhaps he’d be prepared to put his name down. However, politics don’t interest him — if you were seeking to establish a new theatre or music hall, you’d have his wholehearted support, but I’m not sure about what you have in mind. I could, of course, always ask him.’
‘Please do,’ Adelaide insisted, ‘and in exchange I’ll make the late Mr Morrell look presentable for his widow’s visit. Let’s hope that the formalin kills the smell of his several weeks of living in alleyways.’
An hour later, a very tearful Emily Morrell nodded and snuffled into her handkerchief. ‘That was my Alf, right enough. Where on earth has he been these past few weeks, and how come he finished up dead?’
‘He fell down in the street and banged his head,’ Carlyle replied swiftly, in case Matthew was minded to tell her the truth.
‘And the life savings that he stole?’ she asked of Jennings, who shrugged.
‘There’s just under twenty quid in his pockets, so that must be the remains of it,’ he told her.
She nodded. ‘The bugger probably spent it all on drink. No wonder he fell over.’
‘When exactly was your husband dismissed from Bennings?’ Carlyle asked.
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Can’t be exact, because he never told me until it had already happened. But he’s been gone over a month or more, all told. Does that help?’
‘Almost certainly,’ Jennings replied hastily, in case Carlyle was intending to play detective, ‘but we needn’t keep you any longer, Mrs Morrell. Thank you for your assistance, and my sympathy for your loss.’
‘When can I get his body back for burying?’ she asked.
Jennings and Carlyle exchanged awkward glances.
It was Adelaide who stepped forward and took the woman gently by the arm. ‘We just have to confirm that he died when he fell over, Mrs Morrell, and then we’ll be in touch.’
As the two women made their way to the door, Jennings whispered to Matthew, ‘It’s almost midnight — do you need a ride home? Only Hoxton’s on the way to Clerkenwell, isn’t it?’
Matthew nodded, horrified by the realisation that his parents would have been expecting him home for the midday meal.
‘Join Mrs Morrell in the police coach and it’ll take you home,’ Jennings told him.
Carlyle grinned and said, ‘I recommend that you refrain from telling her that you’re the man who led to her husband being on that slab over here. And I further suggest that the three of us meet up here again on Monday morning — shall we say eleven am?’
14
Matthew was acutely aware that he would be subjected to a barrage of maternal enquiries when he arrived home thirteen hours later than his normal return on a Saturday, but even so, he was taken aback as he closed the front door as quietly as its creaking hinges permitted and turned to face an inquisition.
‘Where have you been and what were you thinking of, making us all worry like that?’ Alice demanded. She appeared to become aware of his recently iodined countenance and this only added to her outrage. ‘You’ve been fighting, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, but only briefly. And I won.’
‘Then God alone knows what the other bloke looks like!’ she retorted.
Matthew raised a hand. ‘Please don’t blaspheme like that, Mother. You know it upsets me.’
‘Not half as upset as your mother was when you didn’t come home at the normal time,’ George added as he appeared at the foot of the stairs that led up to the family apartment above the printing business, wearing his carpet slippers and with his braces dangling. ‘So what’s the excuse?’
‘I was in a fight, as I already just explained,’ Matthew replied, opting for a half-truth, since gratuitously adding that this had led to a temporary murder charge would no doubt give his mother apoplexy. ‘Then I needed medical attention and I had to wait for quite a while and here I am.’
‘You’ve got that same look on your face as you did when you kicked your football through the Harrisons’ window that time,’ George told him. ‘You’re a poor liar.’
‘Perhaps it’s as well that I became a clergyman then, isn’t it?’ Matthew replied flippantly, just before his mother rushed forward and embraced him, causing him to flinch.
She stepped back and examined his face more carefully. ‘You’ve got lots of cuts — do they hurt?’
‘They didn’t until a pretty nurse poured something called iodine into them,’ Matthew responded ruefully.
Alice’s maternal instincts got the better of her. ‘Are you hungry?’ she asked solicitously.
Matthew agreed that he was, if only to divert her attention from more penetrating questions. His father, as he’d hoped, went back upstairs to his late edition newspaper and Matthew was in the clear until breakfast the next morning.
‘That was a police coach that brought you home last night, wasn’t it?’ Charles gloated over the breakfast table once their parents were out of earshot. ‘I looked out of my bedroom window when I heard it pulling up and there was a bobby driving the horse. You in trouble or something?’
‘Two things,’ Matthew replied curtly. ‘The first is to enquire whether you ever heard of a criminal being driven home in a police coach, and the second is that if you say anything about that to Mother or Father, you’ll finish up head down in that porridge.’
‘I like you in colour,’ Caroline quipped a minute later as she sat down to the bacon and eggs she’d carried in from the kitchen while their mother followed with a fresh pot of tea.
‘You wouldn’t be so proud of him if you knew how he got that way,’ Alice muttered before departing back to her kitchen.
‘Do tell!’ Caroline demanded.
Matthew shook his head. ‘Another time perhaps, but let me give you the good news. You can safely go past Farringdon Underground again, because that nonsense about returning plague victims is all over.’
‘And how do you know?’ Charles asked suspiciously. ‘Or was that how you finished up looking like Coco the Clown? “Fearless Man of God fights demons from the Pit of Hell”. That should increase your popularity with the ladies.’
‘Which reminds me, I got a letter from Nerys on Friday,’ Caroline chirped. ‘I’ve not seen you since to tell you about it.’
‘Nerys Jenkins?’
‘How many other Neryses do I know?’ Caroline asked sarcastically. ‘Anyway, she’s seemingly called Murgatroyd now and she’s expecting her first.’
‘Fancy being called “Murgatroyd”,’ Charles chuckled. ‘I hope it was worth her while financially. Anyway, does that mean you’ll stop mooning around after her memory, Matthew?’
‘I wasn’t “mooning around”, as you put it — was I, Caroline?’ Her gaze dropped to the table.
‘You were a bit, I’m afraid to have to tell you. But cheer up — there’s bound to be another one behind, like the Number 47 horse bus. You wait nearly an hour, then three turn up one after the other.’ Then she looked more carefully at Matthew. ‘There is, isn’t there? she asked accusingly, but with a conspiratorial smile. ‘You’ve gone all red.’
‘That’s the iodine,’ he replied, but Caroline was not that easily put off when it came to giddy matters of the heart.
‘That’s purple, and in any case there’s none of it on your ears and that’s where you always go the most red. So come on, own up — who is she?’
‘I don’t really want any more breakfast,’ Matthew replied as he rose hastily from the table. ‘And I have to get dressed for Morning Service.’
It had
become traditional for Matthew to conduct the first service of each holy day in the Assembly Room of the East End Mission. He hoped that his small congregation wouldn’t be too curious about his light purple face, which he’d discovered the previous night was impervious to washing. They were either too polite, or too timid, to comment as he led them through the five hymns, two prayers, benediction and sermon that made up his ministry for this Sunday, but he could hardly expect the matter to go unnoticed by the superintendent.
‘A moment, Matthew, if you would,’ Superintendent Livingstone called out from behind his desk in the vestry as Matthew was attempting to leave. ‘What happened to your face?’
Matthew quickly went through his options in his head. This was a small religious community inside a large sprawling network of tightly packed slums and word spread through it faster than the Fire of London had. ‘I was attacked by a lunatic,’ Matthew replied.
Livingstone frowned. ‘So I am advised. I am also advised that you fought back.’
‘Indeed I did, in my own defence,’ Matthew argued, to apparently unsympathetic ears.
‘Brawling in public is hardly an attribute we seek in those who aspire to hold office in our churches, Matthew. Bear that in mind next time and recall our Lord’s admonition that “If a man strike you, turn the other cheek”.’
‘Hopefully there won’t be a next time,’ Matthew muttered, his eyes on the bare wooden floor, ‘and for the record, when I turned both cheeks on this occasion, the man raked them with his fingernails. Hence why the Morning Service today appeared to have been conducted by a circus performer.’
‘Regardless of the circumstances, the witnesses to it will remember only the sight of a man of God rolling around in the dirt on Market Day. This is the second time I’ve been obliged to request that you refrain from bringing publicity of any sort — good or bad — into this Mission. I hope that there won’t be a third. That’s all.’
Matthew was still muttering under his breath regarding the injustice of both warnings as he reached the front door and there waiting from him was Violet Cummins with a big smile on her face. He’d noticed her during the morning service and as the result of his less than satisfactory interview with the superintendent he had completely forgotten that he owed her his grateful thanks.
‘They let yer out, then?’ Violet asked unnecessarily.
Matthew grinned. ‘Yes — thanks to you and all the people you managed to round up in my defence.’
‘Think nothin’ of it,’ Violet replied. ‘Yer worth it — the best preacher what we ever ’ad down these parts. I’m still off the Mother’s Ruin, by the way.’
‘That’s wonderful news, Violet,’ Matthew grinned, genuinely pleased for her. ‘Just make sure you stay that way. If you feel at all tempted to go back to your old ways, I’m always here for a long chat — you know that, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, o’ course. An’ if yer don’t mind me sayin’ so, a few of us ladies reckon that it’s about time yer found yerself a wife of yer own. Yer too nice to go wi’out a wife an’ family.’
‘Thank you, Violet,’ he chuckled. ‘I promise that when I do, you’ll be the first to hear about it.’
‘See that I am. An’ if yer stuck fer choice, me an’ the other ladies around ’ere’d be delighted to suggest a few names. God bless yer, Father West.’
‘I’m not a Catholic priest, Violet — how many times must I tell you?’
‘As far as them around ’ere’s concerned, yer the Pope.’ She smiled before she turned to go out into the street and Matthew felt a warm glow. But she had a point about finding a wife. Nerys was now clearly out of the reckoning and he suddenly realised that he could think about her without any pain. But how much pain would he be inviting if he let his heart slide further in Adelaide’s direction?
15
Matthew was eagerly awaiting Monday morning, although he wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, even himself. Long before the appointed meeting time he was knocking on the mortuary door, which was opened by Adelaide.
She looked him in the face with some amusement as she told him, ‘Iodine doesn’t wash off. I should have advised you of that.’
‘And how do you know that I attempted to do so?’ Matthew asked with what he hoped was an engaging smile. He found himself being scrutinised by Carlyle, who had walked away from the anatomising slab when he heard Matthew’s voice.
‘Basic hygiene,’ he said. ‘Plus you’ve got a tide mark around your shirt collar. Anyway, come in and get a ringside view of your handiwork.’
Matthew swallowed hard and walked to the head of the slab, where what looked like a squashed ferret was awaiting his inspection.
‘As you can see,’ Carlyle boomed in his best lecture theatre voice, ‘I cut away the hair and skin and paired the skull at the back down to the bone. That shiny plate that you’re trying not to look at too closely is called the parietal bone. As you will observe, it looks as if someone pushed their thumb into a cream cake — we call that a “depressed fracture”. In the case of Mr Morrell it caused bleeding inside the brain, which is why he’s not now chasing me around the mortuary and threatening to sue me for ruining his hairstyle.’
‘That was the cause of his death?’ Matthew asked hoarsely.
Carlyle nodded. ‘I couldn’t rule out chronic indigestion, considering how much grog he’d put away, but yes — that’s what killed him. You must have hit him mighty hard.’
‘I didn’t mean to,’ Matthew mumbled, on the point of tears, until Adelaide joined in from the other side of the slab.
‘Yes, you did — you were in fear for your life, so it’s nothing to be ashamed of. But be aware of your own strength in future.’
‘You look to be in need of a cup of tea,’ Carlyle observed, ‘and this morning we have the luxury of coconut macaroons to go with them, courtesy of Adelaide, who really is an excellent cook when she remembers that she’s a woman.’
‘I won’t even rise to that,’ Adelaide replied huffily. ‘And because you’re obviously in a mood to goad me into saying things that I don’t mean, I won’t even reveal why I made them.’
‘They’re a reward for you, for being such a brave boy when she doused you in iodine,’ Carlyle told Matthew in a stage whisper.
Adelaide’s face coloured ever so slightly. ‘Rubbish!’ she retorted. ‘If anything, he deserves to be punished for killing a man.’
‘In self-defence?’ Matthew asked and realised with a slight flutter somewhere inside his chest that although she couldn’t meet his eyes, Adelaide was battling to hold down a smile.
‘A life is a life, is it not? Is it not part of your Church propaganda that every human life is sacred?’
‘You don’t think rationally when yours is about to be taken from you,’ Matthew told her.
‘Stop arguing rationality and eat your macaroons,’ she invited him.
They were well into their morning tea when a knock on the door announced the arrival of John Jennings and once he was duly equipped with tea and macaroon they sat around the anatomisation slab, with the late Mr Morrell suitably obscured from view by means of a sheet purloined from one of the hospital wards on the floors above them.
‘I take it that there have been no more plague pit incidents?’ Carlyle asked.
Jennings shook his head. ‘Indeed not. Since they had been occurring at a rate of two or three every night, it begins to look as if our friend on the slab there was the culprit. We’re very grateful to you, Doctor Carlyle.’
‘You should thank Mr West, since he was the one who killed him,’ Adelaide chimed in.
‘Matthew, please,’ he invited her.
‘Matthew please what?’ Adelaide replied.
‘I meant “Please call me Matthew”.’
Carlyle wagged his finger at Adelaide admonishingly. ‘Stop distracting the boy. We need to decide how next to proceed and I may well require his assistance.’
‘In what way?’ both Matthew and Jennings asked in unison.
Carlyle explained, ‘The three of us are fairly certain that this plague pit nonsense is at an end. But we are probably the only three who are. We need to get the message across to the public in general.’
‘Why?’ Jennings asked. ‘We’ve got our man, according to you, so there won’t be any more ghosties leaping out of pub privies and the commissioner wants to keep the whole business under wraps, since it involved the bloke getting killed. Not good for our public image.’
‘Is that why you never came clean about Jack the Ripper?’ Carlyle demanded. ‘Did some bobby kill him?’
‘Before my time,’ Jennings replied evasively. ‘At least, I was only a newly promoted detective constable in those days, working on burglaries in Mayfair. But what concern is it of yours? That was over four years ago now.’
‘But it was only about a year ago that people stopped worrying that they’d be his next victim,’ Carlyle pointed out. ‘Scotland Yard never gave chapter and verse on why exactly the good folk of Whitechapel and Spitalfields could rest easily in their lodging houses — just some bland assurance that it was all over, from some inspector sent down from the Yard when the next totty was killed, who assured the coroner that it couldn’t have been the work of the Ripper. He never said precisely why.’
‘Your point?’
‘My point should be an obvious one, I would have thought. The people need more than bland assurances this time. Someone needs to tell them categorically, not only that there is no further risk of demons emerging from the Underground, but precisely why. The man responsible is dead. The “man”, please note — not some earthbound spiritual entity seeking revenge, along with its jolly little pals dressed in their best winding sheets.’
‘So we risk promoting the clandestine sales of this “Peyote” drug by advising the great unwashed that it can be used to create happy dreams?’ Jennings demanded querulously.