The Mangle Street Murders

by M. R. C. Kasasian

  I blew my nose and asked, ‘Did she not love her husband then?’

  ‘As much as any woman loves her owner.’ Harriet stubbed her cigarette into an onyx bowl.

  ‘Is marriage really so bad?’

  ‘Worse.’ She looked into her glass. ‘William Wilberforce should have campaigned against it.’

  ‘Then I should be glad that I shall never be able to find out for myself.’

  ‘Poor little March.’

  I finished my drink and kissed Harriet goodbye. I had no right to be weak when there was still work to do. My father taught me that.

  It was a minor skirmish with bandits but they caught our men off-guard in a deep gulley. One man was killed instantly and four were injured before their company managed to fight their way into the open plain. My father and I were having supper when they dashed back into camp.

  The wounded were carried in and laid on camp beds in a row – a subaltern, a corporal and three privates. In most field hospitals the officer would be treated first regardless of medical considerations, but my father believed in helping those most in need of him first. The corporal was bleeding heavily from a neck wound and my father set to work on him immediately, applying a pressure pad to the wound. It was left to me to carry out a triage on the others.

  The subaltern had been shot at close range, his sergeant told me. His head was bandaged clumsily with torn shirts. He was unconscious and his breathing was almost undetectable.

  Two of the privates had light wounds and could wait, but the third had a sabre slash to his stomach and was bleeding heavily through the rolled-up blanket he was clutching against it.

  My father came over to me. ‘I lost the corporal,’ he said.

  ‘The officer is beyond our help,’ I said. ‘I think you should look at that private next.’

  Two men lifted the private on to our table. He was clearly in a great deal of pain and we had some difficulty prising his hands away from the blanket. The men held his arms for my father to lift the blanket away. The wound went right across his stomach. The private screamed and it opened wide and his intestines burst out over him and on to the tabletop. He screamed again. They were spilling over the edge and I tried to catch them. The man lifted his head up to watch. I have never seen such a look of horror, but I was busy trying to stop his guts ripping out under their own weight. They were hot and slippery. My father tried to help me but when I glanced again the man looked puzzled, then disinterested, and his head fell back.

  I sent the sergeant for a padre and took another look at the subaltern. He must have been about the same age as Edward, I thought, and I felt a shadow of guilt for thanking God that he was twenty miles away and safe.

  That shadow hung over me. It follows me still. Sometimes I think I will never see the sun shine again.

  49

  Back to School

  The flag was already up when I returned to 125 Gower Street.

  ‘March.’ My guardian had sent his eye to be re-ground and was wearing a patch. ‘You are just in time.’

  I turned to see a cabby coming up the steps behind me.

  ‘For what?’ I said as we clambered into the hansom.

  ‘A visit.’

  If he was trying to be mysterious, I was not in the mood.

  ‘Do you not want to know about my lunch?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘Did Mrs Dillinger know Miss Hawkins?’

  ‘A little, from seeing her at the Ashbys’ shop.’

  ‘Did she know anything else about her?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Sidney Grice adjusted the buckle on his satchel. ‘Then there is nothing else to discuss.’

  ‘She was very upset.’

  ‘No doubt she was and no doubt either that she still believes me, rather than her murderous son-in-law, to be the architect of her misfortunes.’

  We travelled on in silence, but I knew enough of London by now to see that we were heading for the East End. The traffic was even slower than usual that afternoon, but at last my guardian tapped on the roof and we pulled up outside a pawnbroker’s shop.

  We walked down a side street and then another. Then Sidney Grice ducked suddenly under a low doorway and I followed into a large dark room.

  ‘Looks like class has finished,’ he said, indicating to the rows of small desks and benches.

  ‘You are a little old for lessons, I should say,’ said a voice from the shadows, and we turned to see an elderly woman wiping the chalk from a slate on a tripod.

  ‘Surely your pupils should do that,’ my guardian said. ‘Though perhaps you do not want to risk them breaking another board, Miss Brickett.’

  She stepped forward. ‘How do you know they broke the last one?’

  ‘I can see the fresh slate scratches on the wall and floor and that the board is unscathed.’

  She hung her duster on a nail. ‘You are a quick one, Mr Grice, but how do you know my name?’

  ‘It is over the door. How do you know mine?’

  ‘It is over the newspapers.’

  Sidney Grice perched on a desk. ‘Then you should know who I want to talk to you about.’

  ‘No sitting on the desks,’ Miss Brickett said and he stood up promptly. ‘The only person I am aware of that we had a common interest in is the late and controversially executed William Ashby.’

  ‘Quite so. Do you remember him as a pupil?’

  ‘I remember him well.’ Her voice was sharp and strong, though I would estimate that she was into her eighth decade. ‘His mother was a friend of mine.’

  ‘And when did he leave your school?’

  ‘He would have been twelve. I am sure you can do the mathematics for that, Mr Grice.’

  ‘Did you see anything of him afterwards?’

  Miss Brickett straightened a pile of red textbooks. ‘A little. He worked in the old blacking factory on Straight Street before he joined the army.’

  ‘Did you know his wife?’ I asked, and my guardian looked at me sharply.

  ‘Only by reputation,’ she said, ‘and a shrewish one at that, I gathered.’

  ‘Were you surprised that he murdered her?’ I asked.

  ‘Why is this relevant?’ Sidney Grice asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Miss Brickett ignored him. ‘I always thought him a gentle boy. A great many of my former pupils have gone on to felonious careers. One boy, Owen Richards, was hanged before he had even left my charge.’

  ‘I have that name on my files,’ Sidney Grice said. ‘He set fire to a doctor’s house.’

  ‘The doctor had refused to come out and treat Owen’s mother when she was dying,’ Miss Brickett said, straightening the pile that she had already straightened. ‘The scullery was slightly damaged but nobody was hurt.’

  Sidney Grice shrugged and said, ‘Incompetence is not an extenuating factor, and if you let all the vengeful arsonists back into society the whole country would be ablaze in no time.’

  Miss Brickett took a breath and drew herself up. Even then she was little more than four and a half feet tall.

  ‘Why have you come here?’

  ‘To find out what kind of a pupil William Ashby was.’ He dusted his sleeves, though I could see nothing on them.

  ‘He was a good boy.’ Miss Brickett screwed the cap on a bottle of ink. ‘A hard worker and a regular attender.’

  ‘Bright or stupid?’

  ‘One of the best. If he had had the opportunity he could have followed any profession that he chose.’

  ‘A street boy is a street boy,’ Sidney Grice said. ‘Spare me your socialist fantasies.’

  Miss Brickett took a yardstick from her desk.

  ‘I do not know what educational establishment you attended,’ she waved the stick in my guardian’s direction, ‘but you obviously missed the lessons on humanity and courtesy.’

  ‘Ouch,’ Sidney Grice said as Miss Brickett rapped him smartly on the head.

  50

  The Man in the Cave

  ‘What was the point of that
?’ I asked my guardian as we made our way back up the street.

  ‘I am merely collecting more evidence – not that any is needed – to prove what I have already proved.’ He jerkily sidestepped two boys riding an old perambulator towards him.

  ‘But all we have found out is that William Ashby was a model pupil.’ I skipped over a puddle.

  ‘Precisely.’ Sidney Grice stopped. ‘Tiger Street. I think we can cut through here… Do you know, March, what I find most terrifying about this area? There is not a tea shop within one hundred yards in any direction.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  Sidney Grice pushed a little girl out of his way and marched on.

  ‘To see an old army friend,’ he called over his shoulder.

  I caught up with him and said, ‘I did not know you were ever in the army.’

  ‘Nor was I,’ he said, ‘and, if I ever have a friend, it will not be somebody who lives in a cesspit like this.’ He stopped again and peered down a narrow alleyway. ‘No street signs. You there.’ He grabbed a young boy’s arm and said, ‘Does this pile of ruins have a name?’

  ‘Give me a tanner and I’ll tell you.’

  ‘I’ll give you a sore ear if you do not.’

  The boy kicked my guardian’s shin and wriggled away, and I asked a woman with a basket of laundry on her head.

  ‘Chipper Street,’ she told me. ‘Spare a copper, darlin’.’ I gave her thruppence.

  ‘I knew it was,’ Sidney Grice said, and I followed him down it.

  We came to what looked like a disused drain and, after a moment’s hesitation from my guardian, scrambled in to find ourselves in a sort of cave crudely hacked into the foundations of one of the old buildings which lined the alley.

  At the back was a man, and it took me a while in the grey light to realize that he had no legs and was sitting on a low trolley with iron-rimmed wheels.

  ‘Corporal Lambeth?’ my guardian asked and the man looked up.

  ‘At your service, sir.’ He was busily whittling a short stick from a pile at his side.

  ‘My name is Sidney Grice.’

  ‘The famous detective,’ Corporal Lambeth said and chuckled. ‘What brings you to my stately ’ome then? ’Ave you found my legs?’

  My guardian smiled and said, ‘Where did you last see them?’

  ‘We was in Nova Scotia repelling the Yankee Fenians from Canadian soil,’ the corporal said. ‘I ’ad ’em one minute. Next thing there was a flash and a bang and I sailed into the air. Came down with a bump and the blighters had vanished – gone to meet their maker before me. I’ll be joining them soon enough, though, I expect.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Sidney Grice said softly. ‘You have many a year in you yet.’

  Corporal Lambeth coughed. ‘I ’ope you’re a better detective than you’re a medic, Mr Grice, but you’re not just passing by. What can I do for you?’

  ‘You were in the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, I believe,’ Sidney Grice said.

  ‘Man and boy.’ The old man nodded. ‘It was the 47th Regiment of Foot before we joined with the 81st. Went through the siege of Sevastopol I did without so much as a scratch, and I got the medals to prove it until I ’ad to pawn ’em. Sitting in some rich man’s glass cabinet now and I ’ope ’e’s proud of ’em. I was a month off retirement when this ’appened.’ He shifted on his trolley. ‘When the rains come, the wheels sink in and I can’t get out of ’ere unless some kind soul carries me, and there ain’t many kind souls this side of Old Father Thames, I can tell you.’ He blew down one end of his stick.

  ‘Do you remember a Private William Ashby?’ my guardian asked.

  ‘Young Bill Ashby? The one you ’anged?’

  Sidney Grice nodded. ‘The very same. He was in your platoon, I believe.’

  The corporal tugged his tangled beard. ‘Company cook and a damned good one, as I recall. Knew ’ow to boil an ox a treat, but I never ’ad ’im down as a wife-killer.’

  ‘Did he see much action?’

  Corporal Lambeth sniffed. ‘Action? Not ’im. ’E stayed back and baked the bread while we was scrapping.’

  ‘Some cooks fight,’ I said, and the old man looked up at me.

  ‘And ’ow would you know?’

  ‘My father was a surgeon. We saw a bit of the world. India mainly.’

  ‘Calcutta,’ the corporal said almost wistfully.

  ‘I was there,’ I said, ‘when the Empress of Persia derailed. My father and I worked through the night binding wounds.’

  ‘Now that’s something young Bill could never ’ave done,’ Corporal Lambeth said. ‘Couldn’t stand the sight of blood, ’e couldn’t. I remember ’e cut the side of ’is ’and carving a roast pig once. Fainted clean away ’e did. You can imagine the ragging ’e got for that.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Thank you, March,’ my guardian said. ‘I think we have troubled this gentleman enough for one day.’ He brought his hand out of his pocket and said, ‘I wonder, sir, if I could shake your hand.’

  Corporal Lambeth held his up and said, ‘Excuse me not standing.’

  Back on the street I said, ‘You gave that man a five pound note.’

  My guardian looked indignant. ‘What are you raving about now?’

  ‘I saw it – when you shook his hand.’

  Sidney Grice looked more abashed than I would have thought him capable of, and said, ‘I owed him the money.’

  ‘How did you get in his debt?’

  ‘We are all in his debt,’ he said. ‘He and his comrades have carved out an empire that will bring civilization to the savages for the next thousand years. And the man is reduced to making penny whistles.’

  We walked on a little.

  ‘Might I make an observation?’ I asked as we got back to the main street.

  Sidney Grice flicked a pigeon into flight off the pavement with his cane and said, ‘If it amuses you.’

  ‘I cannot see how anything we have heard today does anything other than support William Ashby’s case.’

  Sidney Grice stopped and stared at me. He put his hand to his patch and said, ‘How can you not understand? In the course of one afternoon we have proved conclusively that Ashby was a model pupil at school and that he was terrified of blood. On those grounds alone I could have secured a conviction.’

  51

  The Confessional Box

  I waited until the last woman had come out of the box before I went in, closing the curtain behind me. In the half-light I saw a metal grille in the partition and I kneeled before it.

  The priest was whispering in Latin. I waited.

  ‘How long is it since your last confession?’ he asked.

  ‘Is that Father Brewster?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘I am March Middleton.’

  A wooden hatch slid open behind the grill and I saw him sitting side on to me, in black vestments with a white stole around his neck.

  ‘Miss Middleton. How are you?’

  ‘I am well, Father.’

  ‘But troubled.’

  ‘How can I not be?’

  The priest’s head dropped as if he were praying, but then he looked up at me and said, ‘William Ashby is beyond the cares of this world.’

  ‘But Mrs Dillinger is not,’ I said. ‘I should like to help her.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I have a little money and she has none. Can you tell me where she is?’

  Father Brewster clicked his tongue.

  ‘I can but I will not,’ he said. ‘I will ask her if she wants to meet you again, though. Can you come back here at eight o’clock?’

  ‘I will be here.’

  ‘Come to the vestry door at the side. You will have more privacy. How is your guardian?’

  I swallowed. ‘I think he is going mad.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘He is still looking into the Ashbys’ case because he feels that his judgement has been brought into question.’

  ‘That is a
very charitable way of putting it,’ Father Brewster said. ‘Many of my parishioners say that he is the one who should have stood on that scaffold. But there is nothing mad about wanting to be right.’

  I said, ‘But he seems to see everything, however good a light it casts on William, as further proof of guilt when it is exactly the opposite.’

  ‘I should not imagine he is a man who would admit when he is wrong,’ Father Brewster said. ‘That would take a great deal of humility and, from what I have seen of Mr Grice, he is far from burdened by that.’

  I laughed and said, ‘You have judged him well there.’

  Father Brewster took off his stole and kissed it and folded it on his lap.

  ‘Why do you stay with him?’

  ‘I need him.’

  Father Brewster shook his head.

  ‘No, March, it is he who needs you.’

  I peered through the fretwork.

  ‘He shows no sign of it.’

  Father Brewster nodded. ‘That is because he does not know it yet.’

  ‘I am sorry but this makes no sense to me.’

  I picked my handbag from the dusty stone floor and he said quietly, ‘You are in a great deal of pain, my child.’

  I looked at the stuffing creeping out of the leather kneeler and said, ‘I am quite well, thank you.’

  Father Brewster put down his missal.

  ‘Does the drink help to ease it?’

  ‘I do not know what you mean.’ I half stood to go but Father Brewster raised his hand.

  ‘Will you let me bless you?’

  I kneeled again and his hand made the sign of the cross as he said, ‘In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti…’

  I closed my eyes and listened to the words and waited to feel something, but there was nothing other than the agony.

  52

  Rugs and Pictures

  ‘This,’ my guardian declared as we went through an open doorway, ‘is where Sarah Ashby was brought up.’