by J C Briggs
Walter’s face lit up like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. ‘I will, Pa,’ he said most earnestly.
‘Very well — off you go then, and do well at your work this week.’
Frank had disappeared.
As Dickens left Devonshire Terrace, he felt guilty about Walter and Frank, as well as about that kiss, and to add to it, he felt guilty about John Elliotson, one of his oldest friends. He had not told him the truth about the visit to Doctor Forbes Winslow’s asylum at Hammersmith. And what was he to say to Sam about Dolly Marchant?
That’s what came of murder — it tainted everything. It was as if you opened a box to find another inside, and then another and another, and each contained something so foul that in touching it your hands became infected and you infected what you then touched. Then give it up, he told himself. Leave it to Sam. Did he think then that Sam was infected?
He stopped at a busy crossing. The sweeper was busy at his work. Dickens prepared to cross and gave him a coin. The man, a ragged and bent old specimen of his kind, touched his moth-eaten fur cap, and said, ‘Bless yer, Mr Dickens, sir. I knows yer from afore when I swept on the New Road.’
Dickens looked closely. ‘Charley Dodd, well, how are you, sir?’
Charley Dodd accompanied him to the other side. ‘Pretty well, Mr Dickens, business is good enough these days; it’s a better place, this is — not sermuch competition, though not everyone tips as good as you.’
Dickens laughed and gave him another coin. ‘Let me make up for the meanness of my fellow men — and ladies, too, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘Oh, the ladies is all right, mostly — it’s the swells yer gotter watch.’
Dickens went on his way. Charley Dodd — a cheerful cove despite the privations of his calling. CD, eh? Be grateful, he chided himself. Do some good and be firm for Sam Jones, who will always be firm for you.
Doctor Elliotson was waiting and when Dickens saw his benevolent face and thought of his many kindnesses, he resolved to tell him the truth. It would ease some of his guilt.
As they went to find a cab, Dickens told him the real purpose of his visit.
Doctor Elliotson regarded him gravely. ‘I do not know if I can sanction such a thing. Doctor Winslow is my close friend and colleague. He was my pupil once.’
‘I would not ask, John, and I would rather tell you the truth as not, but this is a matter of murder.’
‘Then why does not your friend, the Superintendent, visit the asylum officially?’
‘Because Sir Neptune Fane might be a suspect. This is confidential, John, his daughter’s illness might be a motive. In the interests of justice, John.’
‘Very well, but you must not ask directly — you must not seem to know anything about a particular patient — and you will write a piece in Household Words.’
‘I will. I will not compromise you, John.’
‘Do not, Charles — despite our long friendship.’
The asylum, Sussex House, on Fulham Road was a fine residence, a Georgian mansion, built about 1726, standing in spacious grounds. It was built of warm red-brick. The entrance was handsome with fluted columns and curved pediment — a gentleman’s house, the kind of house where you might take tea on the lawn, or dine in some splendour. Not the kind of house where you would be taken on a dark moonless night, tearing out your hair and weeping for your lost love; not the kind of house where you would be imprisoned as a lunatic — perhaps never to get out.
Doctor Winslow was not there to greet them, but his assistant, Doctor Jessop, a young man of a somewhat melancholy aspect, but with gentle eyes, explained that he would be honoured to conduct them and that Doctor Winslow was much gratified by Mr Dickens’s interest and hoped that a favourable article on the treatment and care of the patients would be published.
‘Doctor Winslow’s treatment of our patients is based on kindness, gentleness and soothing tenderness. Those whom we call mad are not wild beasts to be restrained by prison bars, nor are they to be whipped into submission as beasts are. His belief is that they must not be punished in their fallen state; they are amenable to judicious kindness.’
Dickens thought he ought to make some comment in the interest of journalism. ‘He is clearly a man who cares deeply for his charges.’
‘That is so,’ Jessop answered. ‘The life of our asylum is a home life. Doctor Winslow lives here with his wife and children. Our patients are part of that family. We have concerts, dances sometimes, and games are encouraged for the sake of healthy exercise. There are nineteen patients at present — only two are ladies. The small numbers ensure the greatest attention.’
By now, they had seen the sitting rooms and dining room, all furnished most elegantly. Some patients, Doctor Jessop informed them, who were on the road to recovery, were allowed to go out of the gates. Others must be kept very quiet, and under surveillance — of a most unobtrusive kind, of course.
‘Are their medicinal treatments, too?’
‘Blood tonics, sometimes the application of leeches and cold water to soothe the heated mind, and the judicious use of opium to tranquilise the troubled spirit.’
They were upstairs to look at the bedrooms which were pleasantly furnished — they might have been the patients’ own bedrooms at home, except for the bars at some of the windows. On others, Dickens noticed how stout nails had been hammered in. What must it be like to look out on the lawns and trees, and to know that you could only go out if permission were granted? How would it feel to hear the key in the lock at night? What loneliness, he thought, and in that dark solitude, what dreams may come? What did the mad dream of?
‘Here is a poor old man —’ Jessop was pointing through the glass window of one of the bedrooms — ‘who was once a man at whose words of wisdom others listened with silent awe. He stood once before an assembly of the greatest men. His melancholia came upon him of a sudden. He had dined, felt faint and sick and was put to bed by his wife. Now he is lost in some dreadful nightmare, which only the tenderest care may alleviate.’
The old man crouched in the corner of the room with his face buried in his hands. What did he think of? Did he remember his fame or was it all vanished like a dream in the morning? Dickens felt an iciness at his neck. Oh, that it should come to this. It was terrifying — to raise the glass to your lips amongst your friends and in a sudden to be lost to the world.
They went up to another floor.
‘See this poor girl. I cannot help but think of Tennyson when I look at her: “The night is dreary, he cometh not”, but this girl almost never speaks — poor child, she has no notion of what has happened to her. Occasionally, there are a few broken sentences which are hard to make sense of. She weeps most of the time and sometimes tears at her hair. It is a most pitiable case, but with time and gentle treatment, she may recover her wits.’
Dickens knew then that he had found her — the doctor had quoted from Tennyson’s poem: Mariana, who dwelt alone in her moated grange, waiting for her lover who did not come. He did not look at John Elliotson, but he did look through the glass of the door. His heart lurched, and he understood what Pryor had said about the dreadful screaming and the haste to conceal Mariana, and why that was done at night.
They continued their tour, the doctor expatiating on various other cases and the modes of treatment. He was an enthusiast. Dickens found he hardly needed to ask questions — to his relief. They looked about the grounds, the rose beds which would bloom in summer, the kitchen gardens which provided good eating for the patients, the greenhouses where fruit was cultivated, the cow houses — fresh milk was available for the sick — the summer houses where the patients might sit in the warmth and look at the sun — and every other thing which would make his article as long as one of his own novels.
At last, they returned to the front door. Dickens thanked Doctor Jessop and promised an approving piece. He would send Harry Wills, his secretary at Household Words, who also wrote articles. He would hardly dare come again. He wondered how
much he would remember — his head was so full of what he had seen. And he wondered if Dolly Marchant really knew her nephew at all.
‘You got what you came for, I think,’ said John Elliotson as they made their way down the drive. ‘Don’t tell me.’ He changed the subject, smiling, ‘A good, and very long article for my friend and colleague, mind.’
Dickens knew he was forgiven. They shook hands at Hammersmith Bridge. Doctor Elliotson was going to see a patient and Dickens, of course, was bound for Bow Street.
19. A Divided Duty
‘So, Mr Pryor believes in a relationship between Mr Sabatini and Miss Fane,’ Jones recapped with Dickens, ‘and thinks that Violet Pout used Jemima Curd in some way. Jessie Sharp said that Violet gave her presents.’
‘Secrets, he said, that Miss Pout wouldn’t want told,’ Dickens added.
‘Violet Pout knew all about Miss Fane and Sabatini.’
‘According to Pryor, she encouraged it, and I think she knew more,’ said Dickens, who had told of his midnight visitor after hearing Sam’s account of his encounters at Wisteria Lodge. ‘I went to Doctor Winslow’s asylum this morning.’
‘You didn’t ask about Miss Fane!’
‘No, no, the doctor — not Doctor Winslow, by the way — gave me her name inadvertently. He quoted from Tennyson’s poem ‘Mariana’ — she who waits for a lover who does not come. I saw Miss Fane. She is certainly in a most pitiable state. She has virtually lost the power of speech — and no wonder — she is with child.’
Jones was silent for a few moments. ‘Poor girl. I wondered about that. Jessie Sharp said Miss Fane had been unwell for some months. It would explain why she was spirited away in the night…’
‘What are you thinking?’
‘The unthinkable — that it gives Sir Neptune Fane a strong motive for murder. Mr Pryor told you how his fury terrified Jemima Curd. She was dismissed, but he must have thought, what if she told her story? He was very quick to suggest suicide, and he tried to give me the impression that he hardly knew her — servants are his wife’s business, or the housekeeper’s.’
‘He might not have done it himself. He could have paid someone — will someone rid me of this turbulent servant and all that.’
‘Maybe, but what can I do? How could I begin to accuse the Honourable Member? Servants’ gossip — that is how Pryor’s and Jessie’s words would be interpreted.’
‘There is something else — to do with Violet Pout. Mr Pryor seemed to think that there was something going on between her and Sir Neptune.’
‘But she went off with Mr Sabatini.’
‘Pryor did not believe that, and neither did —’
‘Who?’
‘Mrs Marchant with whom I supped last night, and there’s another thing — she portrays her nephew, Rolando Sabatini, as a sensitive, romantic youth which hardly fits in with the idea of a cold-hearted seducer who runs away with another woman, leaving Miss Fane pregnant.’
‘Did you believe her?’
‘Well, given what I know now … and in the cold light of day…’
Jones watched the cold light of day play across his friend’s features. Dickens’s face was troubled and doubtful. He was usually so certain in his reading of character, and so often right. How had Mrs Marchant confounded him? ‘Well?’
Dickens looked at him. ‘I was … I confess it to you, Sam, and to you only … I was dazzled, I think. Mrs Marchant is a very beautiful woman, and she … told me things that I wished she had not. I forgot Jemima Curd and all the rest…’
All the rest, thought Jones, and wondered, but he kept to the point. ‘Things which might be relevant to Jemima Curd’s murder which you cannot tell me without betraying a trust?’
‘I suppose so — a divided duty, but I feel I ought to — murder is so terrible a thing. My loyalty should be to you, but what I have done —’
‘My advice to you is to sift what she has told you, and select what your conscience dictates that you must tell me in regard to the crime which has been committed. You are, in relation to my official capacity, a witness who must tell the truth. If what you keep back now becomes relevant, then you must tell me.’
‘Or never more be officer of thine.’
‘Never that — now, think it over.’
‘Sir Neptune Fane is a man with secrets — a double life. I will not tell you the details unless they become relevant, but he has much to lose. His daughter in an asylum and pregnant, a servant murdered, an illicit liaison with a governess — and he has had a long love affair with another woman.’
Jones did not need to ask the lady’s name. ‘So, it is possible that he might be desperate enough to commit murder. He was uneasy yesterday, especially keen to distance himself from Jemima Curd, and he did not want me to question his servants.’
‘I suppose he was afraid that Mariana’s plight might be told.’
‘Very likely,’ Jones said. ‘But Rolando Sabatini must be suspect, too — he has vanished, he had abandoned Miss Fane —’
‘Mrs Marchant did not tell me that Miss Fane is with child.’
‘She may not have known, or she may be protecting Sabatini from Sir Neptune Fane.’
‘She says that she does not know where Rolando is.’
‘But not with Miss Pout.’
‘She thought Violet Pout worldly and calculating,’ Dickens said, ‘and Mr Pryor used the latter word. I didn’t much like her, either, though I only met her the once — which is why I believed she had run off with Rolando Sabatini.’
‘Jessie Sharp didn’t like her — she had an unkind streak. Jessie said that she and Jemima had secrets.’
‘Violet Pout must know about Mariana — that’s why she left. She’d be frightened to death of Sir Neptune, even if they’d had some sort of liaison.’
‘If she’s not with Sabatini, then where is she?’ Jones asked.
‘Suppose Jemima Curd did go to her for the job she mentioned to Nolly Turner…’
‘Clerkenwell? I’ve had the beat constables asking about her, and Stemp and Feak have combed the area round the reservoir, and they’ve not found anything so far.’
‘No handy waistcoat button?’ Dickens asked.
Jones gave him a twisted smile. ‘And a fat lot of good that’s been. Here’s irony for you: one victim where there’s probable evidence, but it happened five years ago. The murderer’s long gone. In the other case, the murderer can’t be far away, and there’s nothing to go on, but a length of silk ribbon — Jessie sharp told me that Violet Pout had given Jemima ribbons so that’s not much help.’
‘Unless —’
‘You’re still thinking there’s a connection — oh, your artist.’
‘I know, I know — it’s far-fetched, but I can’t help wondering about Mariana Fane’s portrait. Why would Rolando Sabatini tell St. George Pierce about it if there wasn’t one? Violet Pout must have known about it.’
‘We need to find her. I can’t get at Sir Neptune — not without evidence, but Miss Pout seems to be at the heart of this — somehow. Your Anne Brown hasn’t heard anything?’ Jones asked.
‘No, Mrs Pout has not heard from Violet,’ Dickens replied. ‘I’ll go to Clerkenwell tomorrow — I’ll take Scrap. A labouring man and his boy.’
‘Disguise, is it? Oh, well, I can’t think of anything better.’
‘And, now I think of it, Violet Pout has very distinctive hair — so fair as to be almost silver at times. Someone may have seen her.’
‘I hope so. In the meantime, I’ll get on with my paperwork.’
Dickens went off. Jones remained at his desk, thinking about Jemima Curd and Flora Lambert. Drownings. He stood up, got his hat and coat and went out to see Sergeant Rogers.
20: A Wandering Minstrel
The sound of a concertina alerted Mollie Rogers to the presence of the stranger in the stationery shop in Crown Street. She managed the shop for Eleanor and Tom Brim, who had been adopted by Superintendent Jones and his wife, Elizabeth, and, of cou
rse, were too young to run it themselves. Their father had died of tuberculosis at the beginning of the year. Scrap was their messenger boy, general helper, and occasional detective when Dickens and Mr Jones needed sharp eyes and ears, ‘an’ a nose fer things’, as Scrap put it.
The stranger, a ragged sort of individual in a long, shabby coat, an ancient top hat that looked like a crooked chimney, and green spectacles was playing the cracked strains of “Home Sweet Home”. Madman, she thought, about to tell him to clear off. Scrap popped up from behind the counter, looked narrowly at the stranger and said casually, ‘Arternoon, Mr D.’
The notes died wheezily away like air from a rubber cushion. The musician took off his green glasses and gazed on Scrap with a similarly deflated look. ‘How d’you know?’
‘Yer ’ands — the ring. Allus wears it. Seen it ’undreds o’ times.’
It was true — Dickens always wore the little gold and diamond ring on his little finger. He had taken it from Mary Hogarth’s finger when she died. He had sworn never to take it off.
He swept off his hat and bowed, ‘Detective Scrap — Inspector, I suppose now — my compliments. I have need of you.’
Scrap vaulted over the counter. ‘Murder, is it? Mrs Jones sed. I bin waitin’ — fer ages.’
Dickens heard the reproof in his tone.
‘Can you spare him, Mollie?’
‘Never,’ she answered, smiling, ‘but I suppose I must. Where you off to?’
‘Clerkenwell,’ Dickens replied.
‘Best dress the part then. Give us a minit,’ Scrap said.
While he waited, Dickens chatted to Mollie, who had married Sam Jones’s Sergeant Rogers after saving his life in an old hayloft where there was a man with a gun — pointing at Charles Dickens.
‘And your chopping boy?’ Dickens asked. Charlie Rogers at two years old was a strapping boy with the red face and blue eyes of his father and with the same good nature.
‘Into everything — he’s at my ma’s today — just as well, since you’re takin’ my assistant. He has been waitin’ — he’s been across to Mr Jones’s house twenty times, hopin’ that the call will come.’
