The Quickening and the Dead

by J C Briggs

  ‘Quite — we will. But, I was going to say earlier that, knowing the kind of doctor Plume was, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone wanted him dead. And that someone, perhaps, was the person who walked behind the doctor onto the terrace where they were going to smoke a cigar together.’

  ‘Unless it was a woman.’

  ‘True, very true, Alf — but someone he knew, and a woman who didn’t mind the cigar — a woman who knew him well.’

  ‘A mistress?’

  ‘Why not? And I’m beginning to think about a Mrs Amelia Hodson, the so-called milliner with whom Miranda Deverall lived, and who was, as you might say, very thick with him. I will go there today.’

  ‘Right, I’ll get off to the Simpson house again to get the address of Jemmy Pike.’

  Rogers went out as Dickens came in, having returned from Chalk Farm. His eager eyes told Jones that something had been found out.

  ‘You found her?’

  ‘We found Mrs Susan Bliss, once Susan Carter.’

  ‘Wedded bliss?’

  Dickens laughed. ‘Indeed so — bliss was it in that dawn. A happy young woman, but a serious one when she told us about Lavinia Gray — and her monstrous mother.’

  ‘And Doctor Lancelot Plume?’

  ‘Yes. Susan Bliss did not know that Lavinia Gray was dead. We told her about Lavinia’s engagement to Richard Farleigh, said we were friends of his, and that he wished to know if she could shed any light on Lavinia’s suicide. She told us about the death of the brother and about Mrs Gray, pretty much what Mrs Pook said. Then Elizabeth asked about Lavinia’s illness and the doctor. Mrs Bliss looked most uncomfortable, but Elizabeth was gentle in her insistence. Susan Bliss knew that Lavinia Gray was afraid of Plume. Mrs Gray insisted that he treat her — Susan thought her cruel; she knew Lavinia hated his visits. It was a way of punishing Lavinia — Susan thought that Mrs Gray loathed her daughter because her son had died.’

  ‘Did Susan say why Lavinia had to endure these visits?’

  ‘Only that she wouldn’t eat, had headaches —’

  ‘Like Miranda Deverall.’

  ‘Exactly. Susan said that Lavinia was depressed — Susan thought it was sheer loneliness — same as Miranda, I thought. Mrs Gray told Lavinia that if she wouldn’t eat then she must be treated. Lavinia begged her mother to allow Susan to stay with her, but Mrs Gray refused — it wasn’t appropriate that a servant should be present, and Plume said that his treatment must be private between doctor and patient.’

  ‘I’ll bet he did — did she say anything about the illness that precipitated Susan’s leaving?’

  ‘Lavinia got worse — not better. And more silent, Susan thought. She wondered what Plume was doing to the girl.’

  ‘Any suspicions?’

  ‘No — or, she didn’t say, but she wondered about the bouts of sickness. She thought that if Lavinia ate anything, she was perhaps making herself sick afterwards. She had to eat sometimes because Plume and Mrs Gray made her. Then Plume apparently told the mother that he would need to examine Lavinia and it might be necessary to perform an operation. This was done — Susan knew nothing about it except that she was ordered to burn the bloodied sheets. And this is a significant point —’

  ‘They wanted it all kept secret?’

  ‘They did, of course, and I’ll bet Susan had her suspicions, but, what’s important is that Susan didn’t burn the sheets because the washerwoman took them away — Susan thought it a waste when the poor old washerwoman could have used them. The washerwoman’s name is Jenny Ince.’

  ‘She’d know something then? Where do we find her?’

  ‘Newgate Prison.’

  ‘Very convenient. Rogers can —’

  ‘I’ve met her.’ Dickens couldn’t help smiling at Jones’s surprised face.

  ‘Already — time traveller are you?’

  ‘She was the wardswoman who brought in Miranda Deverall when I went to see her.’

  ‘Well, constable, you’d best get back there and find out what she knows about the Gray family. Anything else from Chalk Farm?’

  ‘Just as Mrs Pook said. A nurse was engaged by Plume, and Susan was told she wouldn’t be needed any more. She didn’t see Lavinia again.’

  ‘And then Lavinia met Farleigh, and perhaps believed that she might escape, but when she thought of what marriage would mean, she couldn’t go on with it. There was no way out for her but death.’

  ‘Which is what Miranda Deverall believes — Elizabeth said that Miranda doesn’t care what happens to her. What has this man done, Sam, what has he done?’

  ‘Well, we can’t prove that Lavinia Gray was pregnant back then. I doubt Jenny Ince would know, but it’s worth going back to see her — just in case. However, it’s time we looked into Plume’s life. We need to find out about other patients — is there someone who killed him in revenge for what had been done to a daughter, a sister, a wife, even?’

  ‘The case is yours now?’

  Jones told him of his visit to Superintendent Goss and the Assistant Commissioner, and his conversation with Rogers about the anomalies in the case as described by Sergeant Billie Watts.

  ‘You think someone else was there, someone he knew.’

  ‘I do and my thinking leads me to Mrs Amelia Hodson — was she his mistress as well as the provider of young women for his so called benevolent ministrations? And, had she a reason to kill him? We can do nothing for Lavinia Gray now — the evidence at the inquest will simply focus on her depression and nervous temperament. Suicide, whilst the balance of her mind, etcetera. What we know we will keep to ourselves. It is more important that we should try to save Miranda Deverall. And to that end, I am going now to Mrs Hodson’s. Will you come?’

  ‘Barkis is, as ever, willin’.’

  Chapter 11: In Bones Alley

  Dickens and Jones took a cab to David Street, a short thoroughfare just across the road from the Marylebone Workhouse — not so far from Devonshire Place where Dickens lived just by the York Gate, which led into Regent’s Park and its wide, green spaces. David Street lay in the shadow of the workhouse walls, looming as dark as Newgate itself. Nevertheless, the street was respectable enough with its terrace of eighteenth century houses, the kind of street and houses that Dickens had lived in as a boy — many houses. John Dickens, his father, had been a spendthrift — was still — and his debts had led them all to the Marshalsea Prison. There had been a dingy terrace in Bayham Street, a shabby genteel house in Somerstown, lodgings in Margaret Street, Norfolk Street, George Street — John Dickens like some shabby Pied Piper leading his creditors a dance all over town. If only he would heed Micawber’s advice: Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. John Dickens spent twenty pounds and the sixpence — and the rest. But his son paid his debts. Dickens remembered the houses as all the same: narrow hallways, cramped rooms, airless attics, careless housekeeping — and all mean somehow.

  Not that number 13 David Street looked mean. It looked respectable, neat, the home of a quiet, respectable woman, earning a respectable living — not that the respectable woman was at home. That was obvious. The blinds were down. Windows like eyes over which the lids were closed, and quiet, too quiet. Jones went up the three clean steps and knocked. There was no answer, just the sense of an echo in an empty hall where the silence was stirred, and dust motes shivered in the stale air. Amelia Hodson had gone.

  ‘I wonder,’ said Jones. ‘Is she our murderer? How convenient for her that her cousin’s stepdaughter should be the one accused — even if she had to give evidence, her story would be of a difficult young woman whom she had charitably taken in, who was depressed and silent, given to hysterics at times. A jury might well believe it. But, to be on the safe side, she’s gone — but where?’

  As if in answer to the question, a woman came out of the next door house. ‘Mrs Hodson’s away,’ she said. ‘Gone to Manche
ster to stay with a cousin who’s ill. Said she didn’t know when she’d be back. No one’s there now.’

  Jones went down the steps. ‘She didn’t leave an address or name?’

  The woman looked at him curiously, wondering who he was. ‘No, but there was a girl, a servant, May Brady — Irish kid. Nice little thing — simple, though. Lives down by the burial ground — Bones Alley, just off East Street before you get to The Neptune Public House. She might know.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jones said and the woman walked away, her brisk footsteps pattering on the stone pavement.

  ‘The aptly named Bones Alley then?’ Dickens asked.

  ‘Yes. I’d like to know what May Brady can tell us about Mrs Hodson, and about Miranda Deverall.’

  They walked down East Street and found the narrow alley which led into the old burying ground which had been used for the workhouse poor. The sort of place which was the resort of typhus, dark, stinking with horrible odours and bad water. Dickens had read the report on the state of the city’s graveyards sent to him by his brother-in-law, Henry Austin. He’d dreamt of putrefaction then, and here it was again — an overcharged mass of corruption, the ground greasy with the putrid discharge of bodies whose coffins had decomposed, skeletons dug up, bones left to rot, the dead rising from their graves, diseased ghosts in the foetid air. Someone had observed in the report that one wouldn’t bury a favourite dog in these places — apparently a favourite cat named Ralph had been buried in the more genteel south graveyard on the other side of Paddington Street, but it had been dug up. According to the report, there were dead dogs, rats, offal and refuse of all kinds in such graveyards. And people lived in this sewer where two grim nurses, Poverty and Sickness, presided over birth and death, death which would bring them to burial grounds such as this.

  ‘Vile!’ he said to Jones. ‘Poor May Brady — she’d be better off in the workhouse.’

  ‘Well, let’s ask if anyone knows of them.’ Jones didn’t respond to Dickens’s exclamation — his face reflected what he thought.

  These were not the neat houses of David Street — these were ancient places, probably old stables or mews once attached to better houses, long gone. There would be old cellars, home to too many families. Mostly Irish — refugees from the famine of the 1840s. There was a large Irish population. That was why Amelia Hodson had come to the area, perhaps. A couple of boys sat on a broken bit of wall, throwing stones across the street.

  ‘Know the Bradys?’ asked Jones.

  One of the boys looked up, a wild-haired savage, thought Dickens, observing the beetle brows and jutting chin, the bare feet, ragged trousers, the whole wretched appearance which denoted hunger, bad air and ignorance. Not that this boy looked hungry — he looked tough and aggressive. Dickens saw how his hands curled into fists. There was something hardened about him. The other boy looked hungry, thin as a rail and crooked with malnutrition.

  ‘Jimmy Brady — wot yer want?’ Black eyes, hard as bullets, took in Jones’s authority and his height.

  ‘We want to see your sister, May. Is she here?’

  ‘Down there.’ The dirty hand pointed to a ladder which led to a cellar.

  I don’t want to see this, Dickens thought. He could imagine it. He’d seen it — families crouched like subterranean troglodytes in the cellars of Seven Dials. He had written of the bare and miserable room, the pale and emaciated children, the room, once, where a naked child lay dead, the family too poor to bury it. He looked at Jones and saw the same feelings in his face. In any case, they could hardly climb down a ladder.

  Jones took a penny out of his pocket. ‘Get May, will you?’

  The boy snatched it and vanished down the hole, negotiating the ladder like a monkey. His friend looked at Jones. Red hair this time, a wizened, old man’s face, but an expression of such longing in the pale, lashless eyes that showed the child he really was. Jones took another penny from his pocket. The boy grabbed it. The child, they saw, now had a pair of makeshift crutches. Tiny Tim, thought Dickens. Or not. No Bob Cratchit to love him. The boy manoeuvred himself onto his sticks and scuttled away, crab-wise, two thin legs dangling uselessly, and disappeared down a little passageway.

  They waited without speaking. Dickens had said what he thought to the inaugural meeting of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association. Pity some of those who denied the problems were not standing in the filth of this dank passage. Then they would see.

  A face appeared from a hidden doorway. It seemed to hover uncertainly, looking like some animal emerging from its underground hole. Then the rest of May Brady came up with a crawling motion, little mole-like hands levering her up the steps.

  She was tiny and misshapen, one shoulder higher than the other, and she stared with uncomprehending eyes at the two men. An unfinished sketch of a girl with a tiny snubbed nose and a little pair of twisted, colourless lips. All the vitality given to the black-eyed boy.

  ‘May?’ asked Jones gently. She might dart away, he thought, back down the hole.

  She nodded.

  ‘Can you tell us where Mrs Hodson has gone?’

  ‘Away. Gone away.’

  ‘To Manchester?’

  ‘Manchester. Gone to cousin.’

  ‘Do you know the cousin’s name?’

  ‘Cousin Lizzie Josser in Chorlton. Mrs said.’

  ‘Mrs Hodson?’

  ‘Mrs Raspin — the nurse.’

  ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘Dunno — somewhere.’

  ‘Do you know Kitty Quillian?’

  The little face looked sad. ‘Friend. Kitty gone. All gone.’

  And that was it. She could tell them nothing more, Jones realised. He gave her sixpence. She looked at the silver coin and back at Jones.

  ‘Mine?’

  ‘Yes, for you.’

  They walked away quickly. As they turned the corner, Dickens glanced back and saw her still standing, watching them. A vision from another world, its meaning never guessed at. May, he thought, May, fragile as the blossom which came and went in the month of that name. Not that this May would bloom. She wouldn’t make old bones.

  Chapter 12: Portrait of a Doctor

  Bones Alley was left behind. They walked swiftly away down Paddington Street into Weymouth Street. Jones knew where he was going, evidently. When they stopped opposite Dr Plume’s house, he spoke at last.

  ‘Chorlton. An idea occurs to me — Inspector Hardacre.’

  Dickens nodded. Hardacre was the Manchester policeman whom they had met when investigating the murder of a man named Clement Bell. Hardacre, a dogged, straightforward Manchester man. ‘He might find Lizzie Josser and Mrs Hodson?’

  ‘I can ask — needle in a haystack, I know, but Josser’s an unusual enough name.’

  ‘If May got it right.’

  ‘True, but it’s worth a try. Our witnesses seem to be vanishing — Kitty Quillian gone, Mrs Hodson gone, Mrs Raspin, the nurse, God knows where.’

  ‘Raspin’s not a common name — you might find her. In the meantime, are we standing opposite Plume’s house for a reason?’

  ‘We are. I thought I might ask a few questions and look at the scene of the crime. Perhaps the widow is here — I’d like to see what kind of wife he had.’

  Mrs Plume, they were informed, was not available. Too poorly, the maid said. Jones explained who he was and that he would like to see the doctor’s office. Something in his firm tone told the maid that she must let him in. He noted her Irish accent — he would question her later.

  There were two rooms. One was well-furnished and very much what one might expect of a doctor’s consulting room: a handsome desk with a leather chair and another straight-backed chair for the patient, a sofa, bookshelves with reassuringly serious-looking volumes of medical works, a table with decanters and glasses — handy for the patient with a tendency to faint or for the patient who had just received bad news. And a chest of drawers, the kind of chest in which a man might keep his papers. And a portrait over the mantelpiec
e, showing a broad-shouldered, handsome man with fair curling hair and blue eyes. Thick lips — sensual, Dickens thought, curved in a slight smile, but the face was bland somehow. A mask — that was it. The artist got the surface. It was competent — just the sort of portrait which would please the sitter. Because it revealed no secrets. The subject of the portrait was seated in the leather chair. At his side was the top of a table on which a thick white hand rested on a leather book. A stethoscope lay coiled on the table. The portrait of Lancelot Plume — prosperous, apparently benevolent, the trusted doctor. An irony, Dickens thought — he had been sitting for his own portrait and had called it off because the artist had made him look like the murderer, Greenacre, James Greenacre, the Edgware Road murderer who had cut off the head of his fiancée. A grocer, forsooth. And here was Plume, looking like everyone’s idea of a doctor.

  They opened the French window and looked out to where the doctor’s body had lain. Dickens imagined the man standing, smoking while someone stood behind him with the knife. He looked again at the man in the picture.

  ‘She couldn’t have done it,’ he said.

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘You’ve not seen her. She’s small and as thin as Lavinia Gray. Just a child. Look at his broad shoulders. He was a big man — and the maid told Goss that Plume took her straight into his office — now, was he wearing a coat? If so, then she wouldn’t have had the strength — she couldn’t possibly have stabbed him through it.’

  ‘He might have taken it off,’ Jones pointed out.

  ‘No — he brings her in, hears what she has to say, gives her the five pounds and lets her out the back way. The murderer, whom he knows, comes in. Then he takes off his coat. He’s comfortable with this visitor. They talk. Plume offers cigars — he goes to the open door. The visitor follows and does the deed.’