by J C Briggs
They were shown into a small, pretty parlour where Miss Masters, now Mrs Godolphin, very attractive with her dark curls and frothy lace, sat with a pretty little girl by a cheerful fire. The little girl looked at them solemnly and then hid her face in her mother’s skirts.
‘I will send for nurse,’ Mrs Godolphin said after she had greeted them and expressed her delight at receiving Mr Dickens, and Jones had said that they wished to speak to her about a former schoolfriend. ‘Clara has a cold, poor darling. Now, dearest, nurse will take you to the nursery for I must talk to these gentlemen. Take dolly with you.’
Clara stood up and gazed at them again. Quite liking what she saw, she held up the doll to Dickens. ‘Katy.’
Dickens bent down and took the doll’s hand. ‘Why, Miss Katy, how extraordinary, that is my daughter’s name. Now I have two friends named Katy.’
‘I am Clara.’
‘Well, Miss Clara, you are my only friend called Clara. That is a very special thing.’
‘My papa is very busy. He works at a bank. What do you do?’
‘I write stories.’
‘About dolls?’
‘Sometimes.’
Clara pointed at Jones. ‘Is he your friend?’
‘My very best friend.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He is — he keeps a shop. He sells pens and pencils and sealing wax, paper and inks in all colours of the rainbow.’
Clara looked at Jones consideringly. ‘I shall come to your shop.’
The door opened and the nursemaid came in.
Mrs Godolphin said, ‘You shall go shopping when you are grown-up. Now, go with nurse and I will come up soon.’ Mrs Godolphin motioned them to sit. ‘You are very kind, Mr Dickens. My little pet asks a thousand questions a day — but then you know children, do you not. Little Nell and Paul Dombey, and David Copperfield — but, forgive me, Superintendent Jones, you have come about a schoolfriend of mine.’
‘It is about Susan Harvest.’
She paled then and her pretty, lively face looked sad. ‘Oh, but she is thought to have drowned. My father told me that he had read in the newspaper that the Reverend Harvest believed that she had been taken from Barrow Hill Reservoir. It was very sad. I wrote to Susan’s father.’
‘Susan had been missing for a few months before the unknown girl was pulled from the water. I am trying to find out where she was on behalf of the Reverend Harvest.’
‘I didn’t see her after we came home from Italy. She went home and then became companion to an elderly lady. She wrote to me, but by then I was married. Clara was born in 1846, so I couldn’t go to see Susan. I wrote to her, but then time passed and I lost a baby — a difficult time… I have two more children now — one just a baby — yet we had been such good friends.’
‘I wonder if you might tell us about your time in Italy.’
‘We were eighteen, and it was a quite wonderful experience. I read your Pictures from Italy, Mr Dickens. It brought it all back so vividly — your dream of Venice.’
‘Thank you. Reverend Harvest said that you visited the galleries and churches and artists’ studios.’
‘I met my husband in Florence — he was travelling with his uncle who knew many people. Our heads were quite turned. So many receptions — there were English families and Italian counts and countesses. And they took us to look at pictures everywhere.’
‘You did not meet anyone whom you remember taking particular notice of Susan.’
‘There were lots of young men. Susan was so pretty — and quiet, though. She was shy — she had led such a retired life at home. She never — oh, I do remember. It was something we giggled about. It seemed so romantic to such girls as we were. On one Sunday morning, Susan went to church. I was busy — choosing a dress to wear for an outing with Percival. When she came back, she looked so excited. She had met a young man who was copying a painting. He spoke to her and told her she had beautiful hair and that he would like to paint her. She did have beautiful hair — thick and golden, almost red in some lights.’
‘Did she meet him again?’
‘I don’t know. She might have done. I confess that Percival and I contrived to be alone.’
‘You don’t know his name?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t remember. He was Italian, I’m sure, although he must have spoken to Susan in English. She could not speak Italian. Perhaps he was English — I really don’t know. We left Florence soon after and Susan didn’t talk of it again. It was just an adventure.’ She turned to Jones. ‘Could it be important, Superintendent?’
‘I don’t know, Mrs Godolphin, I promised Reverend Harvest that I would investigate. It is a great sadness to him that Susan may be buried in an unmarked grave. He would like to prove her death and take his daughter home.’
Mrs Godolphin was silent then. ‘To have lost his daughter — oh, how very sad. When I think of how Percival dotes on little Clara. Do you think that Susan could have met this young man again — in London?’
‘It is possible.’
‘I am sorry that I cannot help you more — except that he was an artist. I am more than sorry that I did not keep up with Susan. I think of her now — so pretty in her lilac dress, and all her life before her as mine was.’
They left her to her regrets. They would pass, Dickens thought. It was the way of things. She had her little pet and her baby. But for the Reverend Harvest and that grave sister, their lives were blighted. And Sarah and Dan Curd, Mrs Pout, James Pout — all their lives changed, bruised, scarred, choked off by the murderer’s hands.
‘When you think, Sam, what Susan might have had — that little Clara — it is heart-breaking, and the others, all their futures destroyed.’
33: Watcher
Dickens and Jones went up to Albany Street, the headquarters of S Division, where Inspector Maxwell told them that the finder of the body was one Walter Child, known as Watcher, who had been the watchman at the Pump House at the reservoir. He was still about and could probably be found at a pub in Wellington Terrace. Maxwell had his constables enquiring at the houses nearest the reservoir — certain streets that Jones had thought worthwhile. They were to ask about Susan Harvest and a possible friend named Isabella.
They walked across Regent’s Park, making for the entrance gate, which led into Avenue Road. On the Broad Walk, Jones remarked to Dickens, ‘A pretty golden-haired girl with a sketch book might well attract an artist. And Violet Pout walked beside a man with a sketch book. This is where he picked them up.’
‘And he had probably been in Clerkenwell near Sadler’s Wells, perhaps, and to there he returned. That house in Amwell Street, did you find out who owns it?’
‘A Mr Mitchell, who let it to a lady who is abroad for her health, but still pays the rent. Her furniture is in storage. Miss Pout and her paramour seem to have been cuckoos in that nest.’
They passed the zoo.
‘Mrs Marchant,’ Jones began, ‘did she understand?’
Dickens did not look at him. ‘She understood how murder taints everything. Not that she forgave me. She thought I was looking for Violet Pout. She did not know I was looking for a murderer — in league with Superintendent Jones of Bow Street.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘My own fault.’
They reached the gate. Ahead lay Avenue Road, at the top of which were quite a number of scattered houses in their own grounds. To the right lay Barrow Hill Place and a path leading to the reservoir. Barrow Hill was not a hill, not in the way that its neighbour, Primrose Hill, was. It had been a hill, but its aspirations had been crushed by the engineers who had built the reservoir.
Inspector Maxwell had told them that occasionally it had been an attraction for those who desired a watery grave, but the preference was for the canal or the lake in Regent’s Park. As far as he knew no murder had been done at the reservoir — not recently at any rate — there’d been two men killed over a lady years’ back, and an Italian poet had fought a duel with
a man who had criticised his poems. Maxwell laughed. ‘Foscolo — the name was — Ugo — that’s it — sensitive, I suppose — about his work.’ Maxwell had addressed his historical remarks to Dickens. Sam Jones had heard these tales already. Dickens had laughed in agreement, but he had shivered inwardly. Ugo Foscolo — the Italian poet who had been Agosto Sabatini’s patron. Fate weaving its net.
By some unspoken agreement, Jones and Dickens took the path to the reservoir, the path along which Susan had gone in her lilac gown and innocently pretty white bonnet. Whatever she had done, however she had fallen, her ruin had been brought about, Dickens thought, by the artist in murder. He looked at Jones’s face, worn by the cold and read there his own sorrow about all those drowned girls.
Looking to the west, away over the horizon, the heavy indigo clouds were touched on their undersides with gold. A splash of molten gold showed where the sun was setting. They watched the cloud masses lower and weigh down the brightness which shrank to a thin roll of gold. The dark grey water before them was still as lead. Somewhere a bird called its goodnight. The air was bitter and the water looked horribly cold and depthless. It might have been a million fathoms deep. Dickens thought of the poor girl sucked down into the dreadful silence and a dark man slipping into the shadows.
‘Let’s go and find Watcher,’ said Jones. ‘I’ve seen enough.’
There were lights coming on in the windows as Dickens and Jones walked along Avenue Road: a maid was closing the shutters; piano music came from an upstairs window; a nursemaid turned into a gate manoeuvring a perambulator; a woman holding a little child stared out at them; in another firelit window, in a comfortable room which looked like a study, Dickens saw a man with his head in his hands, his elbows on a desk, an open letter before him.
‘Samivel — there’s a story, I daresay… I think that with employment for the mind, exercise for the body, a domestic hearth, and a cheerful spirit — a man may still be many things wanting to complete his happiness — and he may be confoundedly miserable.’
‘So he may, but what have you told me, many a time —’
‘And oft — not necessarily on the Rialto —’ Dickens smiled a crooked smile — ‘what pearl of wisdom have I cast before you?’
But Jones’s face was grave and his eyes looked at Dickens with sympathy. He felt sad, too, remembering his friend’s words about David Copperfield: that old, unhappy want of something. ‘Courage, persevere — that’s what you say.’
‘I do — and I will. We will.’
They found their way to Wellington Terrace where, tucked behind The Asylum for Orphaned Children of the Clergy, they discovered the pub where Inspector Maxwell had told them they would likely find Walter Child: The Friend in Need. The landlord pointed him out.
Watcher sat alone at a small table by the fire. There was a look of a wild bird about him, a bird of prey for which his curved beak of a nose was exactly right. There was a manner about him of one lying in wait. Well, that was his occupation — on the watch for trespassers, waifs and strays, midnight swimmers, would be robbers, would be suicides — murderers, perhaps.
Dickens procured them some drinks. Watcher took the proffered brandy and warm with scarcely a flicker of his hooded lids. Jones was always patient — he waited until the first drink had been enjoyed and put his hand over the second. At this, Watcher’s eyes flew open. Dickens saw how sharp they were — the brown-yellow colour of a falcon’s or a hawk’s with two black pinpoints of pupils.
‘June, 1846, the girl in the lilac gown — what do you remember?’
‘Pretty girl, white straw bonnet, golden hair.’
‘How do you think she went in?’ Jones removed his hand.
Watcher drank again then looked at them, his sharp eyes glinting. ‘Rare to get a suicide up there. Folk goes where they knows. Suicide’s an odd game. They goes to a place they bin afore, usually, most often, I thinks. Young girl wouldn’t go ter the reservoir. She’d go ter the lake in the park or the canal. A girl wouldn’t go up there — at night.’
‘Why should she care?’ asked Dickens. ‘If she planned to kill herself? What could be more frightening than the prospect of death itself?’
‘See, sir, that’s ’aporth —’ Watcher took another gulp. They waited — ‘’aportheticle, see, logic yer speakin’. But logic ain’t no use in suicide. If yer woz thinkin’ logic, yer wouldn’t do it at all. A woman, or a man, fer that matter, ’as their mind on their own death — it seems the only way. T’ain’t nothin’ — wun minit yer ’ere sufferin’, next yer can be gone where no wun can foller. But afore yer go, yer might see ter things. Yer might be frightened o’ the dark so yer takes a lantern; yer might be worried about the weather so yer takes an umbrella; yer don’t wanter get lost so yer treads the familiar path. Wun part of yer mind works along the way it’s allus worked — automatic like…’
Another philosopher, thought Dickens. ‘You seem to know a good deal about it.’
‘Waterman wunce — down Lime’ouse. Knowed a deal o’ folk wot took that way. My wife — fished ’er out meself. She’d gone but she left me a chop — plate on the ’ob — see she couldn’t go without settin’ things right — an’ she went in at Lime’ouse Cut — knowed it, see.’
‘So if the girl didn’t take her own life, did someone push her?’ asked Jones.
‘’Ard ter say. Want no sign o’ sich. Eyes open — yer gets a feelin’ about the last thing they sees.’
‘What?’ Dickens asked. He’d thought that about Jemima Curd.
‘See, a suicide closes ’er eyes — nat’ral, ain’t it? Yer don’t wanter see. An’ very of’en there’s somethin’ peaceful — they’ve gone an’ they ain’t sorry. But other times — not many — I seen somethin’ different. That girl in the lilac dress — frightened. She saw an enemy last of all — that’s wot I thinks.’
Watcher’s eyes were hooded again as though he looked into himself, remembering the murdered eyes he had seen.
Could it be true? Could the victim’s eyes retain the terror of the last moments when she realised that the hands at the throat were not those of a lover who only meant to caress?
‘At the inquest, the doctor reported that there were marks on her neck. Did you see those?’ asked the practical Jones.
The eyes opened, ‘Nah, jest saw the bonnet floatin’ be’hind ’er. ’Ooked er out —’
‘How?’
‘Use an iron ’ook on a pole.’
‘No, how did you hook her?’
Watcher understood. ‘Caught ’er by the neck — pulled ’er in ter the shore gentle-like. Mighta left a mark, I serpose. No one asked abaht that.’
‘Did anyone ask about her?’
‘No wun — that’s why I thort she wouldn’ta gone ter Barrer. ’Ow’d she know ’er way up there? But a bit arter, arter the inquest, somewun did come ter see me ’ere.’
‘Who?’
Watcher lifted his empty glass. It was time to pay the philospher a bit more. Dickens obliged.
Watcher drank. ‘Young woman — servant, I thort. Wanted ter know about the dead girl. Did I see anywun with ’er? Did I think she’d committed suicide? Sed I dint see anywun — jest saw ’er dead in the water an’ inquest jus’ sed found drowned. When the reverend gentleman an’ is friend came, told ’em, but I don’t think they ever found ’er.’
‘Did she give a name?’
‘No, but there woz another girl waitin’ at the bar. Went out together an’ I eard the name Lilian, but I can’t tell yer which woz Lilian. Both servants, I’d say.’
Dickens and Jones left Watcher to his last drink and went out into Wellington Road and walked down Park Road towards York Gate and Devonshire Terrace.
‘A servant girl called Lilian — it’s something, I suppose,’ Dickens said.
‘Not much — she might be anywhere. And, remember, we don’t have any evidence that Susan Harvest was murdered by anyone, let alone an artist. There were some marks on her neck — maybe the bonnet strings, maybe
Watcher’s pole, we don’t know. I’d have to ask for an exhumation — to be able to tell if her neck was broken. It might not have been. Flora Lambert was particularly fragile. And if there were no evidence the Reverend Harvest would be put through that horror for nothing.’
‘True enough, but what about old eagle eye there — his notion that he saw something in her eyes. What do you think?’
‘No idea — he puts away enough drink. I don’t know, Charles, I just want some facts — not visions.’
‘Lilian is not that common a name — Maxwell might trace her and Isabella.’
‘I’ll go and tell him. You go home. There’s nothing more to be done tonight.’
‘You won’t come in?’
‘No, thank you. I shall go home after I’ve seen Maxwell.’
‘Courage, persevere — if you will, I will, as the boys say.’
Jones laughed. ‘Something will turn up, I daresay.’
‘Bless you, Samivel.’
With that, Dickens turned away into York Gate.
There were the usual letters which Dickens put to one side. And there was a piece of folded paper sealed with wax and addressed to him. He opened it. There were just two words: Rarx. Midnight. And a little drawing, the clever outline of a black and white bird. A magpie.
That was a facer. It had to be from Magpie. Midnight near Hemlock Court. Rarx and his blunderbuss, not to mention that it was a crooked place of labyrinthine alleys. Dangerous. When you went away from the streets where gas light made darkness visible, there was always a sense that the darkness in those alleys, many no wider than tunnels, was thicker, deeper, suffocating and more terrifying — if murder were on your mind. Somewhere at a distance clocks would chime midnight, but time in those places meant nothing to the houseless ears of the vagabond, to the street sleeper bundled in his doorway, to the robber slinking from his lurk — or to the ghost rising from his grave. Once, he had met a boy in the most threadbare rags who had looked at him as if he had been the ghost and when he had put his hand out, the creature had twisted out of its garments and vanished, naked and houseless into the dark.
