The Quickening and the Dead

by J C Briggs

  They were silent for a while until Dickens began again. ‘And, yet, a good doctor…’

  ‘He wanted to save lives — that’s what Doctor Piper said. But, he was prepared to let Miranda Deverall suffer for his crime — I can’t understand that. He must have known. Why hasn’t he come forward to save her life?’

  It was another unanswerable question — at least until they found the good doctor.

  The train rolled into London Bridge Station. They threaded their way across another bridge — London Bridge, teeming with people — the clerks like so many black beetles, scurrying from their ledgers, their faces grey in the gas light; the fish-women from Billingsgate with rough shawls over their heads; the laundresses; the dock-porters — the cabs, carriages, carts and wagons. It was easier to walk than to be trapped in the solid mass of traffic.

  It was raining. A sharp-edged wind was blowing off the river, and they could see the rain slanting across the light shed by the gas lamps. It promised to be a wild and windy night. Down below, the grimy steamers came and went from Old Shades Pier, taking the pinched-faced clerks back under the bridges to their lodgings and cramped houses in Vauxhall, Pimlico and Chelsea. The dome of St Paul’s loomed black across to the left. Beyond that were the dreadful walls of Newgate, and Bow Street where they would go before setting off to Queen Charlotte’s Hospital.

  At Bow Street, they saw Sergeant Rogers in earnest conversation with a police constable whom Jones did not know — from Goss’s Division, he wondered. Something afoot?

  Rogers saw the Superintendent — his glance was one of relief.

  ‘Constable Cleek with a message from Inspector Cuff, sir. They think they’ve found Kitty Quillian.’

  ‘Dead?’

  The young constable spoke. ‘Yes, sir. Mr Cuff wants yer to come, sir. He’s sent ter Newgate for Mr Brady — to identify the body.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In an old privy, back of an old ’ouse, sir — nobody livin’ there. Not far from Brady’s. Down some steps. I can take yer.’

  ‘Right — we’ll get a couple of cabs. Rogers, we’ll follow you and Cleek.’ Jones turned to Dickens. ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘Yes.’ Dickens would go — not that he wanted to enter that subterranean world again. Still, Satan was gone — and his myrmidons, excepting Jimmy Brady, of course.

  In the cab, they couldn’t speak. What was there to say? Poor Kitty. And that put paid to the idea of the good doctor. Good doctor he might have been, but he was a murderer. Plume might have been guilty of appalling deeds, but Arthur Brimstone and Kitty Quillian were innocent of any crime. Dickens rather suspected that Brimstone had been helpless in the matter of the farmed babies in the face of his wife’s stronger will. Helpless, weak, cowardly, probably, but he hadn’t deserved his death. And Kitty who had been kind to Miranda Deverall, and to little May Brady — what had she done to deserve a death in a foul privy? It was disgusting, unforgivable. Curse the man who had done that.

  Bones Alley again. It was quiet as the graves in that miserable burying ground, except that somewhere unseen, the wind like a demented drummer, blew a door or window back and forth which made a hard, banging noise. The policemen’s lamps lit up the flaws of stinging rain which whirled around them, soaking their coats and trouser legs. Hideous night.

  Cleek led them down the steps into the little court where the rain thickened the darkness and the wind mourned through the dark tunnels before them. Rain was filling up the holes and slopping against the steps. They might have been at the edge of a river — the underground Tyburn River had flowed this way, Dickens remembered. Rising, perhaps, the ghost of the river giving up its dead. What about Mary Brady and May in their cellar? But, there was no time to do anything about that. Sam was walking on and Rogers waited for him. He hurried forward — he had no desire to be lost in the dark again.

  They followed Cleek down the alleys which might have been the same alleys through which he had fled with Scrap — impossible to tell. Water sluiced down from the darkness, waterfalls cascaded from gutterless roofs, water sprang up from underground, and there was the putrid stench of excrement and filth. God, he thought, it’s like walking through a sewer — it was walking through a sewer. And people lived in this, washed up and dragged down again by this filthy tide, the flotsam and jetsam of the flood.

  They struggled on, going down, then up again. Cleek kept turning to make sure they were with him. Dickens could see his white face streaming in the light of the bull’s eye lantern like the face of a drowning man. Jones turned, and Dickens saw how bleak his face looked in the flickering light. The rain, eternal, maledict, and cold and heavy — so Dante found in Hell’s third circle. Down again. Hell again.

  At length, Cleek turned into a narrow passage by a tumbledown building. Near the end they stopped, for another policeman came out with a man. It was Paul Brady in manacles. He was bareheaded and heedless of the rain which poured down on him, running down his face. He didn’t look at them as he passed, guided by the policeman. He walked like a blind man, and Jones could see that the rain mingled with his tears. It was Kitty then.

  They followed Cleek into the yard where Inspector Cuff waited for them by a derelict outhouse.

  ‘In here,’ he said. It was too wet to waste words on greeting.

  Dickens and Jones went in with him. Cuff held up his lantern and they saw her.

  She lay on her back. The rain fell through the broken roof onto her dress, torn at the bodice, and besplattered with mud and black stains which must have been blood. One eye was open, and her long hair was spread in the water that was ankle deep. She seemed to be floating. Ophelia — but a dreadfully wounded one. No willow here, growing aslant a brook, no cornflowers or daisies — just black, muddy water which smelt of excrement and corruption. The half of her face that leant towards them was unmarked. She had been pretty, but — Cuff moved his lamp — they saw that someone had smashed the other half of her face to pulp.

  Dickens looked away, sick at heart. Violence and hatred had been at work here — someone had wanted to destroy her beauty. Not the weeping Paul Brady. Not Sefton, surely not Sefton who had given a tramp two shillings — and money to Kitty for her baby. He looked at Sam.

  ‘Sefton didn’t do this.’ Jones’s voice was flat. He thought about a half-brick he had seen at Mrs Brady’s, and Stemp who had talked of a boy with a stone ready to bash his head in, and of Paul Brady who had said that the same boy had followed him and Kitty. ‘Jimmy Brady’s work. He did this.’

  Dickens, Jones and Rogers left Inspector Cuff and his men to deal with the body. Cuff would be searching for Jimmy Brady. He was convinced by Jones’s evidence. Constable Cleek would show them out of the alleys — he knew a way they could go to Harcourt Street

  The rain was not so torrential now. Little squalls were tossed by the wind, and there was a faint edge of silver on the ragged clouds. The moon was waiting.

  Cleek walked away, leaving them standing at the junction of Paddington Street and Crawford Street. It was only a step to Harcourt Street and Queen Charlotte’s Hospital. Dickens felt wet to his very bones. He shivered.

  Jones looked at him. ‘You should go home, Charles — you’ll catch your death.’

  ‘No, Sam, I’ll come. Let’s finish it.’

  Chapter 36: The Stars Make No Sign

  Doctor Sefton wasn’t there.

  He had not been there for six weeks. He had intended to sail for Canada on the SS Helen on 27 November. Doctor Hawkins, a surgeon at Queen Charlotte’s, had agreed to see them.

  ‘I wrote a recommendation for him. He was to take a post at the hospital in Quebec — I do not understand this at all. I can scarce believe what you have told me. He was one of the best surgeons I have ever met. His success in Canada was certain. Good God, Superintendent, are you certain?’

  ‘Certain that I have enough evidence to justify my questioning him — yes.’

  Doctor Hawkins had a commanding presence. He was master here, and he had
wanted to know why they sought Doctor Sefton. He had looked at Dickens with speculation in his eye — so much so that Dickens had felt obliged to explain his concern in Miranda Deverall’s case. Jones had explained that there was no doubt of the accused girl’s innocence, that he had sufficient evidence to believe that Frederick Sefton might well have been in contact with Lancelot Plume, and that evidence of a past quarrel had come to light which made Sefton a suspect. He told Doctor Hawkins of the murder of Arthur Brimstone, and that it was his belief that the two murders were connected. More than that, he was not prepared to say, but it was imperative that they find Sefton.

  ‘Why did he leave your hospital weeks before his intended departure for Canada? Did he say?’

  ‘Only that he had affairs to settle before he left. I assumed that he meant family matters — that kind of thing.’

  ‘And you have heard nothing of him since?’

  ‘No, I did not expect to. Sefton was an excellent surgeon, but a solitary man. Not a man with whom one would be intimate. Ours was a professional relationship only.’

  ‘He had no friends here with whom we might speak?’ asked Dickens.

  ‘No, I think not. As I say, he was a solitary man. I think we all imagined that he would be on his way to Canada by now.’

  ‘If you do hear anything, you will let me know?’ asked Jones.

  ‘I will — should I ask others if they have heard anything?’

  ‘I would be obliged, sir, if you would — discreetly, if you will.’

  ‘I understand, though I am still confounded by what you have told me. I hope that you find him — and that he is able to prove his innocence in this affair.’

  Jones didn’t answer — he did not believe for a moment that Doctor Sefton would be able to prove his innocence. Moreover, he wanted to be gone. There was much to think about. What if Sefton had sailed to Canada on 27 November, the day after the murder of Arthur Brimstone. What then?

  They went out to meet Rogers who had waited in the hall. They walked out down the drive, out of the gardens and onto the New Road. At least it had stopped raining. By unspoken consent, they stopped.

  ‘That’s a facer,’ Dickens said.

  ‘What?’

  Jones explained. ‘He’s not there, Rogers. He might have sailed for Canada. He’d booked a passage on the Helen for twenty-seventh November — the day after Brimstone’s murder.’

  Rogers whistled. ‘What now?’

  ‘I want you to go to back to Bow Street, get Feak and Johnson, or anybody who’s about — get down to the shipping agents, find out if Sefton was booked on the Helen, which wharf it was sailing from, and get down there to find out if he’s gone.’

  Dickens had a thought. ‘If you can find a paper for twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth November, you might find the announcement of sailing — the Daily News publishes times and dates.’

  ‘Good idea, Charles — if you can’t find the announcement, then go to the agents — JB Ford in Broad Street deals with ships to Canada and North America. I’ll leave it to you. Just find out if he’s sailed — any way you can think of.’

  Rogers went off in a hurry. He’d seen the Superintendent’s face, and the disappointment there. Rogers believed in Jones, believed in him and admired him, and if he, Sergeant Rogers, had anything to do with it, then Sefton would be found and the Superintendent would triumph. If he had to search them ruddy docks all night, he’d find where Sefton had gone.

  Dickens and Jones stood where they were, looking up at the moon which had made its appearance from behind the rags of cloud. A few stars had appeared. Sefton might be looking up at them from the deck of the Helen, sailing away from them on the wide, wide sea. Perhaps he would be looking for a sign in those stars which would tell his fate. But, Dickens thought, watching the restless moon contend with the clouds, there were no signs in the moon, or stars, for their reading.

  ‘If he’s gone?’

  ‘Well, I’ll have him followed — just as the police followed Mrs Manning. They thought she might be on board the Victoria — she wasn’t, but the point holds. If he sailed two days ago, then he’s not that far away. The ship will have left Gravesend yesterday. It will pass Plymouth tomorrow. I can telegraph Plymouth and the police can go out with the pilot cutter. The cutter takes off any passengers wanting to stay in England.’

  ‘Or not wanting.’

  ‘Exactly — Sefton could be taken off and brought back to London.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘I’m going to Bow Street where I shall sit and wait for Rogers — all night, if I must. I need to do something, anything — I shall immerse myself in my papers.’

  Dickens sympathised for he, too, hated delay — waiting was as painful as drawn daggers. However, he considered their sodden coats and boots.

  ‘Samivel,’ he began.

  ‘Mr Weller — your wisdom?’ Jones smiled at him.

  ‘I knows an ’ouse — a good ’ouse — less than half a league hence — in Devonshire Terrace where there is a blazing fire, a decanter of brandy and where we can eats a bowl of giblet broth made from a recipe devised by the lady of the ’ouse — Lady Maria Clutterbuck wot is agoin’ ter publish them self-same recipes in a book. Wot does yer say, Samivel, ter that?’ It was true — Mrs Dickens was preparing a book of her recipes under the name of Lady Maria.

  ‘I would say aye, Mr Weller, were it not that I should be in Bow Street to wait for Rogers.’

  ‘He’ll send a message to your house, Samivel —’

  ‘But I’ll be at your house.’

  ‘Ha, but I will send a message to your Elizabeth to send a message to my house should a message come to your house — in short, as Micawber would say, something will turn up. In this case, the amiable Sergeant Rogers.’

  ‘Very well, I am persuaded.’

  There was a good fire in Dickens’s study at Devonshire Terrace. John, his manservant, had been instructed to send the coachman with a message to Elizabeth, to provide broth, bread, cheese and hot water, to make sure the Superintendent’s coat and boots were dried in the kitchen, to provide a pair of house slippers, and to see that they were not disturbed.

  All this accomplished with Dickens’s bustling energy, Jones and he sat by the fire with two glasses.

  ‘Do you think he’s gone?’ Jones asked.

  ‘He had affairs to settle, so Doctor Hawkins said. Well, we think we know what they were. Perhaps he wanted to settle the matter of Rose with Plume.’

  ‘That’s our theory — but, if it is so, how does he square his delicate conscience with the fact that someone else is accused of his crime?’

  ‘He can’t. And that’s the sticking point. What kind of man is he?’

  ‘A puzzle — a good doctor who gives money to a tramp, and to Kitty for her baby, yet stabs a man in the back and doesn’t give himself up for the poor girl who will hang for his crime.’

  ‘Unless,’ Dickens thought for a moment, ‘unless we’ve got it wrong. Perhaps we’re making too much of his charity to Kitty. He wanted information. He knew how to get it — by giving her money for her child.’

  ‘But Michael O’Malley?’

  ‘Hm — that is a difficulty… Maybe, the doctor in him — a natural impulse, perhaps. Everyone we have spoken to portrays him as a solitary being. He makes no friends. He’s single-minded — what he wants is to do his work. Suppose he thinks that his life is worth more than Miranda’s —’

  ‘But, there’s all the work he did for those poor women — I can’t help but connect it to Rose.’

  ‘He’s good at it. He believes he’s the best. He is not so concerned with his patients, but with his own skill. He’s ambitious —’ Dickens warmed to his theme. He understood single-minded ambition — ‘perhaps he wanted fame and fortune and thought he might find it in London. Then he found that Plume had it — Plume who was not half the doctor he was.’

  ‘And that’s what tipped the balance. As we thought before, he went to Plume for money to fund his ambition
s in Canada. A spot of blackmail — pay up, or I will tell what I know about you. Plume refuses, of course.’

  ‘And the new post — he can’t give that up. He won’t give it up. He’s killed for it.’

  ‘You’ve answered my question. He’s gone — and I’ll have to go after him.’

  Dickens heard a knocking at the front door, then the sound of voices in the hall. John was speaking to somebody.

  ‘A messenger from the gods, I’ll be bound — Mercury in policeman’s boots.’ He had caught the sound of the voice of Sergeant Rogers. ‘What did I tell you?’

  John tapped at the library door, and opening it, announced the Sergeant.

  ‘Of this earth, undoubtedly — he has it on his boots,’ said Dickens, rising to meet Rogers.

  ‘Sorry, sir — should have wiped ’em.’

  ‘No matter, Sergeant — you are as welcome to the Superintendent as spring is to the earth. What news?’

  Rogers turned to Jones. ‘The ship sailed without him — Sefton wasn’t on board.’

  Chapter 36: A Bonnet with a Blue Ribbon

  Jones was in his office the next morning; he sat at his desk looking at The Morning Post with unseeing eyes. He was thinking about the news Rogers had brought the night before.

  ‘Something,’ Dickens had said, apropos of Sefton rather than Rogers, ‘will turn up.’

  And Jones was waiting — not with the sanguinary feelings of Mr Micawber. For, he thought, nothing might turn up. Sefton might be anywhere, in or out of London. He looked at the newspaper, at the advertisement promising the relief of defective vision: immediately the newly invented spectacles are placed before imperfect vision, every object becomes clear and distinct… If only…

  He bent his head to the newspaper. It was time he thought about some other cases — successful ones, for a change. He noted that Benjamin Rouse, notorious burglar and thoroughgoing rogue, had been found guilty of a list of thefts, and had been sentenced to transportation for life — not that he would mend his ways in Australia, thought Jones, feeling a twinge of pity for Rouse’s new hosts, but he would be glad to see the back of him. The learned Judge, so said the newspaper, had commended Police Constable Johnson for: the meritorious manner in which he had secured the arrest. Good — the police praised for once. He chuckled at the report of the conduct of one Cornelius Driscoll, an Irish tramp who had stolen three pounds of bacon from a shop in Aldersgate Street. He had been in London a week — he wasn’t sure where he’d been before that. He was sentenced to twenty-one days in the House of Correction, to which he had replied, “Thank ye, your honour.” Glad to get out of the rain, no doubt, and no need to steal his breakfast for a while.