by J C Briggs
Dickens walked down Avenue Road, thinking on Byron’s words: the love where Death had set his seal. Did that mean that whoever had sat for that unfinished portrait was dead? Two faceless portraits simply left behind. Perhaps there were others. Anthony Ferrars was a man possessed of a single idea — to find a face, the face of a girl who had died in Ferrara — Caterina Vecelli, surely. He had lost her — killed her, or she had killed herself. Either way, he had lost her and sought her in the years that followed. But when he could not paint the faces of the red-haired girls he found, he killed them. Flora Lambert’s face had not been the right one.
Perhaps Caterina had looked like the girl in the painting Aurelio Paladini had seen at Ferrara. Anthony Ferrars had seen that painting, fallen in love with the face, had found its living counterpart, had been denied the fulfilment of his love, but he could not forget. Dickens had not remembered it except in a vague way, but he supposed it could happen to some young, impressionable, lonely man — a young man who could become possessed of a single idea.
The picture he had remembered most vividly was one he had seen at Rome — the portrait of Beatrice Cenci. It had been her expression of sorrow and desolate helplessness that had remained as clear as the paper on which he had described it. It was supposed that the painter had seen her just before her execution. He remembered it now, but it was a memory of beauty like the memory of a poem or a rose. He had not fallen in love with a face.
Was Ferrars mad? Or — what had Cipriani Lloyd said about Polidori’s theory of sleep? Two minds in two states of being, neither knowing the other’s working. He had a book entitled The Philosophy of Sleep by Robert MacNish — he would have to look it all up, but he did remember the writer’s ideas about reverie. MacNish had written something along the lines of too much reverie disturbing the balance of the mind, affecting the understanding. Did Anthony Ferrars not know what he did in those trance-like states? There were cases of murder done by those possessed by some nightmare. Were even the sane mad in their dreams? Somnambulism was, according to MacNish, allied to madness.
Theories were all very well, though. The urgent thing was to find Jianna Rizzo. Find her and find Anthony Ferrars? It seemed likely. He ought to go to see Sam, though, first, to tell him about Ferrars. He was nearly at the path leading to Barrow Hill reservoir. He looked along the path and saw a figure coming slowly down the incline. He stopped to watch. It was a woman, dressed in black, a woman who looked like a walking shadow — it was an unearthly sight. He could hear the wind sighing in the hedges and there was the eerie call of an owl. He thought of Susan Harvest risen from her pauper’s grave, going back to the scene of her death, gazing down into that black water, and returning to her grave at cock-crow. Except it was not dawn. It was nearly dark and she should be going the other way.
He shut his eyes and opened them wide. The figure was gone. A waking dream — I am haunted by these deaths and by Italy. Even by Byron, he thought, whose old house he had passed every day when he had lived at Albaro near Genoa. A dreadful weariness came over him — too much of Cipriani Lloyd’s wine. How many glasses had he drunk? He made to walk on, but she was there again. She walked haltingly and he noticed that she used a stick. She was real then. Watcher had doubted that a young woman would go up to the reservoir at night. It was odd that any woman would, Dickens thought, watching her slow progress. What could she have wanted up there in the dark? Perhaps a meeting, perhaps in remembrance of someone who had perished there in the water. She might be a widow in her weeds.
As she came closer, he shrank back into a gateway. He heard the scrape of her stick on the gravelled path, then the two footfalls. It sounded strangely as if a one-legged person were being followed by one who paused before continuing his relentless pursuit. He saw her come from the path into the road. She was heavily veiled. Sam’s veiled woman? He watched her cross towards Henry Street, a shadow shrinking as she went.
Go home, he told himself — you need hot tea and food, but as if he were sleepwalking he followed. She turned into Charles Street and he followed her into Barrow Hill Road. He found that he was not at all surprised to see her turn into William Street — the street where Anthony Ferrars had lived with Susan Harvest. She stopped by a gate, looked at the house, but she did not go in.
She went on down into Portland Town Road. Gas lights came on and he saw her in patches of light which gave a horrible intensity to her blackness. Then she dissolved into shadow and each time he thought she had vanished as a spectre, but she came again, always walking at that same slow pace, her stick making that third eerie footfall. She turned into Park Road. He saw her again in gaslight then she was gone.
He looked down Park Road. There was no entrance to Regent’s Park until you got to Hanover Gate. He started down the road, but there was no sign of her. She would need to have hurried to get that far. There were two possible turnings off Park Road: one into Lodge Road and one into North Bank where the gardens of the houses led down to the banks of the Regent’s Canal. He retraced his steps and turned down North Bank.
Nothing. She might have been swallowed into the earth. He walked along the road, looking at the houses where sometimes curtains were closed against the night, shutters were fastened, or where he could see lights and fires blazing cheerfully. He went on to the end to where he knew the canal flowed through a tunnel under Grove End Road. There was a bridge over the canal and beyond that some gardens, very dark now where there was no gaslight. And there was a house there in those gardens, a solitary house. He crossed the bridge and there at a gate leading into a gravelled path there was a sign: To Let.
Ivy Cottage had the desolate look of a house abandoned. Only Time had thrived here, judging by the ivy which grew over the windows and onto the roof to wind itself round a broken chimney. Time had devoured the rank and overgrown garden and the gravel path where weeds sprouted. Laurel bushes grew too tall, rhododendron crowded over the path and willow trees trailed their branches over his head. Silence had moved in here, too, heavy as a shroud. The smell was of the grave, earthy and bitter.
But she was there on the steps up to the front door. He stepped forward and his foot scraped the gravel. It sounded very loud in the silence. She turned. He hesitated. What right had he to follow? She was a woman alone and a stranger had pursued her to an empty house.
However, she stood quite still as if she were made of black marble. ‘Who are you?’ she asked. ‘What do you want?’
‘Anthony Ferrars,’ he said, not that he had intended to.
She did not move. He advanced slowly as a man might approach a wild creature. She remained motionless. He stood at the bottom of the steps looking up. Her face was a faint smudge beneath the veil.
‘Who are you?’ she repeated, stepping back. Her voice was low and hoarse as if from disuse.
‘I am looking for a missing girl. I am told she might be known to Mr Ferrars.’
‘What girl?’
‘An Italian girl, Jianna Rizzo — she has red-gold hair.’
‘Why do you tell me that?’ There was a note of alarm now.
‘Susan Harvest had red-gold hair — Susan who drowned at Barrow Hill. I saw you there.’ Dickens had no idea where this exchange might lead, but he was certain that this woman knew all about Anthony Ferrars and that he must shock her into telling. ‘You met Susan in the park — dear little Susan, so young and so innocent. Did she love Anthony?’
‘I should not have taken her there. I wanted to please him. He was so unhappy.’
‘Because of Caterina?’
‘You know it all. How do you know?’
‘I saw him in Venice.’
Now she was very frightened. He saw how she grasped her stick more tightly and how she shrank from him, a stranger in the dark. Madam Emerald. He was the darkness come. Cassie Hanlon’s Knave of Spades — the dark enemy.
‘You need not be frightened. I mean no harm to you. Jianna Rizzo must be found. She is in danger, I believe.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Let me come into the house and I will tell you. I won’t harm you.’
She turned to unlock the door and he went up the steps to follow her inside. It was too dark to see anything but shadows in the hall. There was only emptiness in this house, he thought. No one else was there. He heard her open a door and went after her. Her feet sounded on the bare floorboards. If only there were some light. He heard her cross the room and the sound of a catch lifted and the creak of a shutter opening. The she stood in silver moonlight, just a black silhouette. But the moonlight showed a stub of candle in a holder on the marble mantelpiece and some Lucifer matches. He lit a match on the candlestick striker and put the flame to the candle.
He looked about him, the candle flame creating moving shadows on the walls. The woman remained still as stone. There was an oil lamp with just a glass chimney — the broken shade lay on a table, one of the very few bits of furniture left. He lit the lamp which smoked at first and then a flame flickered and sprang into life. She looked more human now. He could see the folds of her dress, the fur trim on her cape and the silver collar on her stick, but her black veil was still unnerving.
‘I must see your face.’
She lifted the veil. Dickens remained absolutely still and kept his mouth firmly closed before any gasp could escape. There was nothing to be horrified about. It was just that in this dim light half her face looked black. Her mouth was crooked and she looked at him, with dark, frightened eyes as if he were some necromancer who exerted a dreadful power over her. He took a step towards her, but still she stared and in the better light that he saw that half her face was horribly puckered and dark red. He felt his power over her and he was certain that she knew all about Anthony Ferrars. She might even know where he was.
‘You have come from Venice for him?’
‘No, but I did see him there, and I saw the girl and his hands around her neck.’
Something between a sob and a choking sound came from her and her black-gloved hands covered her face and she seemed to shrink before him as if she were her own shadow dwindling before the light. But he caught her before she fell and helped her to a chair beside the table with its broken lampshade. She sat and wept, a hard, dry, wretching sobbing, her shoulders heaving, her hands still covering her wounded face.
Now, he pitied her, for the sound was that of one who had stored up years of grief and anguish which poured out now before a stranger whom she thought was a messenger from the past: nemesis. He felt in his pocket for his flask. There was brandy in it. He poured some into the silver cup which formed the top and placed it on the table. The he knelt in the dust beside her and gently took her hands from her eyes. There were no tears. Half the face was a mask of grief, the other maimed half unchanged. It was the most dreadful face he had ever seen. He took the silver cup and placed it at her lips.
‘Please, drink, it will help.’
She sipped at the brandy and gradually became still again. She looked at him as if he, too, had been transformed from something unearthly to someone human with a human heart.
‘I thought you were a ghost. Tell me who you are, I beg you.’
‘I am sorry I frightened you. I came from Cipriani Lloyd. You know the name.’ She nodded. ‘He showed me a portrait without a face, the work of Anthony, and I showed him another. The picture is of a woman in a green robe with a jewelled cross round her neck. The woman has red-gold hair. The second painting was found in a mews in Clerkenwell where I had gone to find a missing girl who was a servant —’
‘Your servant?’
‘No, but I was tasked to find her by a friend. The girl is dead. She was pulled from the reservoir in Clerkenwell. She had been strangled.’
In the silence that followed, Dickens heard the faint creak of a floorboard in the hall. He strained to listen. He felt his own heart beating so hard that he thought it must be heard in the thick silence. The woman heard the noise. She looked at him in terror. Then it came again, the slight creak as if someone had put down a foot. Someone was there. He had left the front door open.
42: A Signal
A fool’s errand, I’ll bet, Jones thought as he and Rogers made their way along Park Road.
Inspector Day had told him about the case. No one had come forward to claim the girl with the plaited hair. Plenty of people had been questioned and there had been the usual notice in the paper. Someone had thought she might have been in service at Ivy Cottage, a large secluded house at the end of the South bank near the canal tunnel where she had been found. Inspector Day had doubted that — the victim’s clothes were too good and the hair so elaborately dressed, but he’d sent his sergeant to the house. There had only been a widow lady there and she knew nothing.
‘What is the widow’s name?’ Jones had asked.
‘Mrs Isabella Ferrars, but she isn’t there now. The house is to let. It’s empty.’
‘Isabella,’ said Rogers, ‘the name Reverend Harvest gave you, and a widow lady.’
‘Quite — and a veiled woman in black who called at William Street sometimes according to Lilian Judd.’
‘Worth a look?’
‘We might as well. We can find out who the letting agent is — he might be able to tell us something about Mrs Ferrars, though she could be dead for all we know. I feel as if we’re wasting time, Alf, but —’
‘Nothing else we can do until Jack Marchant turns up — you didn’t find out anythin’ useful from his ma?’
‘No — well, he hasn’t been to Italy so that rules him out, I think. I don’t believe he is the murderer, nor Sabatini. He’s just a lad and heartbroken about poor Miss Fane and Marchant’s a hothead. Clever, though, clever enough to find Miss Rizzo, maybe, and impetuous enough to get himself into trouble — that worries me.’
‘What’s Mr Dickens doin’?’
Jones grinned at him. ‘The word “impetuous” make you think of Mr Dickens?’
Rogers grinned back. ‘No, sir, he’ll be all right, Mr Dickens, he knows what he’s about. Scrap tells me he’s — in — inimitable — that’s the word. Your Eleanor told Scrap it meant no one like him an’ that’s true enough.’
Jones laughed, ‘So, it is. We’ll call at Devonshire Terrace on our way back. He’s been to see one of his artist friends with that painting we found at Amwell Street. He might have found out something.’
They turned into North Bank. Inspector Day had told them about the little bridge which crossed the canal and led to Ivy Cottage on South Bank. The path was parallel to the canal and the bridge just before the tunnel where the girl had been pulled out. It was very quiet, almost like the country, thought Jones, looking at the gardens which reached down through the path. It would be lovely in the summer to watch the barges go by. The tunnel led into a basin surrounded by streets. The Maida Hill Canal began on the other side of Edgeware Road and then there were fields. There was no reason that Mrs Ferrars should be connected to the drowned girl — if she had been murdered, the perpetrator could have fled along the footpath which went under Grove End Road. He could have vanished into those crowded streets or those empty fields. It was only the name “Isabella” that —
‘Good God! Ferrars — Ferrara.’
Rogers understood. They hurried on to find the bridge which led to Ivy Cottage. The notice board advertised the letting agents: Lewis and Holmes, The New Road, Marylebone. They might need that.
The gravel path brought them through the neglected garden. The house was not empty for there was flickering light in one of the downstairs windows and the front door was open. Jones motioned Rogers to stop.
‘Let’s go quietly. I should like to know who’s lurking about a house that’s supposed to be empty.’
They moved into the shelter of some overgrown laurel bushes. Rogers removed his truncheon from his belt and handed his bull’s eye lamp to Jones who lit it and swivelled the cowl so that the light was concealed. They went forward on the grass of the circular lawn. Rogers crept up the steps and waited and Jones saw him slide
into through the door. After a few moments the door opened a little wider and Jones slipped in. His foot made a slight creaking on the floorboards. Wavering light was coming through a door that was ajar. Rogers moved forward but the floorboards creaked again. He stopped and they held their breath in the silence.
‘Someone is there — someone. Oh, God, Anthony! Don’t come in!’ It was a woman’s voice.
A familiar voice shushed her. ‘No, no, be calm. There is nothing now. Listen.’
Dickens waited. The woman put her hands to her face. There was nothing. Just the old house creaking, perhaps. But he couldn’t help thinking of Anthony Ferrars. Then there was a brief flame of light. Darkness again. Light again. Darkness. Light. Darkness. It was a signal. A dark lantern? A signal for the veiled woman.
He surreptitiously picked up his stick and crossed the room as quietly as he could. Surely, someone intending harm would have come in. He did not want to meet Ferrars face to face. What might he do? But he couldn’t turn back. He had to know. He could fight it out, he supposed, take the person by surprise with a sudden blow. He gripped the stick tightly.
He showed himself at the door. The lamp was raised and he saw to his great relief the face of Sam Jones gazing at him. He didn’t look surprised. The other was Rogers — he did not need to see his face. He pointed to the front door. Jones just nodded went to close it. Dickens returned to the room.
‘There is no one. I have closed the front door. You are safe.’
‘You said a girl was strangled. Not Anthony, no, no!’
‘Please, do not distress yourself. Tell me about Anthony.’
‘He is my brother. He is the younger by ten years. I looked after him from the day he was born. Our mother was too fragile — she was never well after his birth. She took no interest in him. She took to her bed in the day time, but she was well enough when guests came to the palazzo. She liked to be the centre of things — she was beautiful. But she walked in her sleep. She did things — I saw her by Anthony’s bed. She was holding a pillow over his face. I screamed and screamed and she stopped. Anthony was terrified. My father said that she did not know what she was doing. She would go out at night and the servants would bring her back. Nothing was said about what she did at those times. Mr Byron came with Mr Polidori. My father knew them. Mr Polidori had written a paper on sleep and advised my father that she should be locked in and given laudanum.
