Dead Ringer

by Roy Lewis

  ‘Where?’ Gully insisted in a quiet but threatening tone. And the boy told us.

  I really ought to explain to you about Puddler.

  He was one of those lads for whom the overpowering stench that pervaded the outlet to the main sewer emptying into the river at Shadwell was merely just part of a day’s work. He was impervious to it: he had worked the shores since he was eight years of age and he was well used to ignoring both the stench and the foul, evil-smelling sewage that trickled from the outlet in a black, turgid stream dripping into the river. Every day he’d trudge through the mud, turning into the main outlet where the Commissioners had yet to install the brick walls and strong iron doors that they had erected elsewhere to prevent flooding. The doors were so arranged that at low tide the pressure of sewer water beyond the door would force them open, to spew forth the accumulated filth of the city streets and dwellings. When the tide rose the door was forced shut against the wall so that the shoremen could not enter. But the Puddler knew how to get around that problem.

  From what the boy told us, a few days after I had faced humiliation in the Exchequer Court at the hands of Baron Alderson, inside the main sewer outlet Puddler had lit his dark lantern and adjusted his bag on his back. The air was not too bad that day, apparently: it was always somewhat better when the spring tides caused the water to rush through the sewers, bursting up through the gratings into the streets, and flooding the low-lying districts in the vicinity of the river. There were times when Shadwell and Wapping came to be intersected by muddy canals but those were not the good times for Puddler. It made his task – grubbing out a meagre living from pickings in the sewer – that much more difficult. And the spring tides were past. The dry spell had caused accumulations of filth in the sewers, but he had worked in worse air.

  You ask what was he about? Well, he had learned his trade early from the toshers who travelled along the muddy shores beside the ship-building and ship-breaking yards. You know about them? The toshers picked up iron bolts, copper nails, lengths of rope, anything of value, stuffing their prizes into the vast pockets of their greasy, velveteen coats. The shoremen wore old shoes and dirty canvas trousers to shuffle through the mud, testing their foothold with long poles at the end of which were large iron hoes. Puddler had learned how useful, indeed necessary, such a pole was when he had been caught one day, struggling in a deep set of sewer mud. The more he’d struggled the deeper he’d been enmired. The pole had saved him: by hooking it into some crumbling brickwork he’d been able to draw himself to safety. His own version was a five foot stave with an iron hook on one end and a stout hoe on the other. He never worked the shore without it.

  When Puddler had started, working with gangs of four other boys, he would have heard tales of sewer hunters beset by giant rats, of skeletons that rattled their bones underfoot, or fell clawing from the decaying brickwork of the walls of the sewer tunnel, and of the mythical, vicious wild hogs that lived and fed in the underground tunnels. Puddler learned to discount these tales: there was more danger from the nosys who peered down through the street gratings. They could claim a reward of five pounds offered by the Commissioners for information leading to the apprehension of sewer hunters like himself so the gratings were to be avoided, or passed with care.

  He had learned his trade well before leaving the gang to look for ‘tosh’ on his own: he knew better than to scramble over the heaps of rubbish in the darkness of the criss-crossing tunnels by grabbing at the overhead brickwork: the slightest tug and he might be buried in an avalanche of old bricks and earth. He also knew it was dangerous to branch into the smaller sewers leading off from the main run: apart from the discomfort of stooping low and crawling in the noisome mud under a four foot heading there could be foul air and gas accumulated in the confined space. And that’s where the rats nested: they could be ferocious and vicious if disturbed. And there was also the sluice gate which was shut down by high tide and opened by low tide – the water could burst out in a torrent, sweeping everything away in its path.

  I gathered that Puddler had no idea what his real name might be: brought up on Jacob’s Island he had always been called Puddler, he knew not why. He could not recall who had first set him to work in the sewers nor who had first given him a canvas apron and a dark, bull’s-eye lantern, and it was a good three years since he had split away from the gangs of boys, to strike out on his own as a sewer scavenger. He was lean, wiry, thirteen years of age and he was able to look after himself, scraping a reasonable enough living from the gleanings of the foul rubbish of the sewer. It was the only life he had known; the only life he wanted.

  Puddler never took a dog to protect him from the packs of rats, as some of the other toshers did: its barking could draw attention to his silent progress through the sewage. And he always closed his lantern when he approached a street grating so he could slip past without causing a curious group to gather, telling the policeman on duty that there was someone moving in the sewer below.

  So he would go along, raking the mud below with his hoe, picking in the crevices of the brickwork with the hook, occasionally discovering clusters of small articles that had been lodged in the sewer holes formed in the crumbling brick. He took almost everything he found: scraps of metal, iron, nails, coins – some rusted into a mass … spoons, ladles, knives and forks. By plunging his hand into the muck up to the elbow he could bring up shillings, sixpences, and half-crowns. He told Ben, almost with a sort of pride, he had twice found half-sovereigns, probably washed down from a cesspool or house drain where they had been lost. He had once found some ladies’ jewellery: that had been a good day.

  As for Joe Bartle’s watch, Puddler had had a feeling about that particular day. There had been some rain after the long summer drought: a heavy downpour had cleared some of the accumulated rubbish. He had decided to work an area he had entered rarely before, because the gangs were too numerous at Snow’s Fields, his usual entry point. So he had worked his way carefully from the shore outlet towards Mint Square, where the sewers were noisome with numerous pockets of gas.

  Not much of a life, hey?

  Shortly after he penetrated the main sewer slushing through the thick sewage, he had heard the dull booming ahead and had quickly stepped into a side sewer, crouching down as the rush of water from the sluice swept past him on its headlong dash to the river. Then he crept forward again, lifting his dark lantern ahead of him, probing with his iron-hoed pole.

  The opening of the sluice had moved a fair amount of sludge but the location was not promising: a side cavern in which thick slime had accumulated and where a faint light filtered down from the main grating in Kent Street. He was edging forward, one eye on the grating above with his bull’s eye lantern covered, when his pole struck something, soft and yielding. Puddler stopped, edged forward carefully, up to his thighs in filthy mud and groped with his hand for the thing he had struck. He felt the roughness of cloth, an arm … then a man’s head.

  Now Puddler was used to finding the occasional corpse in the sewers: sometimes garrotted and stripped, occasional suicides near the river entrance. But this one was fresh, fully clothed, it seemed, and suggested better pickings than usual. Gripping the arm tightly Puddler walked carefully backwards, dragging the body deeper into the sewer, away from the street grating above. It moved sluggishly but easily enough as the sludge gave out sucking sounds and rushes of fetid air reached his nostrils.

  In the darker recesses of the sewer Puddler unstrapped his dark lantern from his chest and lifted it high, opening the shutter. Leaning against the ledge at his back he gripped at the collar and heaved. There was a sluggish, reluctant swirling in the mud and the head appeared, hair plastered down, mouth choked black with muck, the face unrecognizable as human in the filth that encrusted it. Puddler laid aside his pole, propping the lantern on its hook, and then he knelt in the mud up to his chest, while his fingers searched through the clothing, the pockets, the vest. He found a handkerchief, keys, some coins and pushed them into the ta
ttered canvas bag on his back. There was a ring on the left hand: it slipped off easily enough where the hand had been gnawed at by rats. His groping fingers found a snuff box in the side pocket and it followed the coins. There was a watch chain, and he eagerly followed it until he encountered the watch itself. It was a hunter: he knew that if he was lucky, it would be gold and that would fetch a pretty penny.

  There was little else. He groped and searched blindly, turning the heavy body over and over in the thick mud, but at last, reluctantly, he gave up. It was time to strip the body, because the jacket, shirt and trousers, boots, all could be sold. It was a difficult job, turning the inert body over and over in the cloying filth but at last it was done and there was a satisfying weight in the bag on his back, and the canvas apron at his waist. He picked up his pole, disengaged the lantern. Then he went on his way, stepping aside from the man’s body as it sank in the thick slime, to head back down towards the outlet. In a moment he had all but forgotten about the man as he wandered on through the tunnels, picking up the odd piece of old metal, bones, a length of rope.

  It had been a good day. He was sure of it. He retraced his steps under the rattle and thunder of the London streets, back to the riverside, and the miasmic air of the Thames. When he emerged, the light was dying and fires glimmered along the landings and in the camps on Jacob’s Island.

  Ben Gully sighed softly after Puddler finished his account. ‘So is that it?’

  Puddler was silent for a little while, staring at Gully and the threat of the hand fearfully. At last, he shook his head in despair. ‘That’s it, Mr Gully. But I don’t like getting involved in things like this. It’s not my way. You got to understand, I go me own road, I don’t interfere with others, I don’t arsk questions, I just pick up what I find….’

  ‘The body was under Kent Street, you say.’

  Puddler nodded eagerly, stroking his throat with tender, caressing fingers. ‘That’s right. Under Kent Street. But that ain’t necessarily where he started, of course. Could have been washed down. There’s a powerful current just there, running from the north side of the street … a main junction—’

  ‘We’ll have to tell the police,’ I interrupted.

  Puddler let out a wail. ‘Mister Gully, I can’t be pulled up before no police! I swear I didn’t do nothing to the—’

  ‘Shut up,’ Gully snapped. ‘Your name won’t be passed on.’ He glanced at me. ‘The polis, informin’ them … I’ll leave that to you, sir. You can tell them you acted on information received, without disclosing the part played by our young friend here.’ He grinned wolfishly at the boy on the bed. ‘Because he’s going to help us further.’

  Puddler moaned lightly. ‘I don’t want to get involved in no peeler business.’

  ‘He’s going to take me into the sewers,’ Ben Gully said pleasantly. ‘And he’s going to show me just where he found the body from which he took this watch. And he’s going to give me the benefit of all his considerable experience … and show me where the body might first have been dumped into the sewer.’ He glanced at me. ‘And then we’ll see what’s what.’

  I need hardly tell you I was happy enough to leave that particular task to Ben Gully.

  Chapter Five

  1

  SO JOE BARTLE was dead. And by the looks of it, murdered. Ben Gully confirmed the likelihood with me next day after he’d been down into the sewers with Puddler: from Bartle’s head injuries it looked as though he’d been beaten to death.

  The missing witness at the Running Rein hearing would now never be able to tell us why he had failed to turn up at the trial, who had persuaded him into his course of action, or what part he might have played thereafter in the spiriting away of the horse after Baron Alderson demanded that Running Rein be produced in court. But it probably had led to his violent murder.

  ‘So you still think Bentinck is behind this?’ Ben Gully asked me, doubt in his voice.

  ‘At the Carlton Club he put pressure on me to stop ferreting further,’ I insisted. ‘Now we know why.’

  Ben Gully growled deep in his throat. ‘It won’t be an easy task, pinning a murder on the Dictator of the Turf. And I’m not as certain as you are, Mr James. When we look at the facts … well, we know Bartle was at the stables on the Wednesday before trial, then disappeared. There’s a report he was at Hampstead Heath for the Porky Clark–Sam Martin fight on the Sunday afternoon. Monday, your case got dismissed ’cos Running Rein wasn’t to be found.’ He shook his head in doubt, breathing hard as his errant eye wandered in his head.

  ‘You say you think Bentinck is behind all this, but we also got to consider whether Lewis Goodman didn’t have a hand in the business. And that possibility makes me shiver.’

  I’d wondered about that while Ben had rowed me back from Jacob’s Island. I’d stayed silent then, while I looked about me: the mist was rising, but wispy tendrils still stubbornly gathered along the side creeks, and the monotonous, mournful sounds of the sirens still wailed along the river as the coal boats drifted past us like silent ghosts and the sound of river steamers came clunking through the mist.

  But I’d settled my mind on Lord George.

  Now, standing just off Chancery Lane, while bewigged men of law hurried past on their way to one court or another, and pock-pitted creatures peered at us in dirt-encrusted suspicion through the lane’s patched and papered windows, I could see that Ben was wondering whether we should persist in our enquiries.

  ‘So what do you suggest, Ben?’ I asked at last.

  ‘Leave it, Mr James. It’s no longer just about a missing horse. You could be throwing good money after bad.’

  Stubborn pride was swelling in my throat. That’s always been my trouble, you know. I always hated losing. It made me a successful and aggressive advocate, of course, but it also got me into all sorts of trouble over the years. Like the time I called Gladstone little better than a pimp and he threatened to sue me, oh, yes, quite an exchange of letters that was. But I’d have nailed him if he’d taken me to court, you know, and he knew it … all those ‘fallen women’ he took back to his lodgings for prayers for their immortal soul!

  And that day with Ben I felt that if I stopped at this point it would be an admission of defeat, Bentinck and Goodman and Fitzroy Kelly and even that old blunderer Baron Alderson would be the winners in all this. ‘I’m reluctant to give it up now,’ I advised Ben. ‘I want to find out what happened to that damned horse.’

  ‘And why Bartle had to die too?’ Ben queried, eyeing me carefully. ‘You’ve already been warned off pursuing these matters. Best all left alone, Mr James.’

  But I could not do that and told him so. Gully shrugged, nodded finally and said with a sigh, ‘It’s your tin, Mr James. If this is what you want, I’ll see what I can do. Give me a few days to make some further enquiries … and meanwhile, you get a report to the peelers. But keep all names out of it; it’ll only make things more difficult if names get used.’

  So off he went, stumping past the rickety children playing in the dirt while I made my way, reluctantly I admit, to Bow Street Police Station. There I laid an information. That very evening I watched at a safe distance as a group of policemen gathered at the grating in Kent Street, while a workman clambered down into the sewer. When they finally brought out the corpse I was at the edge of a curious crowd but I did not wait around to take a closer look.

  I already knew who it was.

  After that it was no real surprise to me a few days later when an unwelcome visitor appeared on the steps of the Old Bailey, when I was leaving after the successful defence of an actress accused of indecency on an omnibus. I’d persuaded the court that she was merely fumbling in her skirts for the price of the ride. I was smiling, and a few guineas richer, when I emerged, but I sobered when I saw the stiff, blue-coated man waiting at the foot of the steps.

  Inspector Redfern.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ he said politely enough, stepping forward and raising a courteous hand to his tall black h
at. ‘And congratulations.’

  He wasn’t here to follow my forensic career. I frowned. ‘What can I do for you, Inspector? I’m rather busy: I have to appear at the Exchequer Court in a little while and—’

  ‘If you have no objection I’ll walk along with you, Mr James,’ Redfern announced breezily, glancing around him at the busy street. ‘It’s difficult to be heard here.’ In those days, you see, the street outside the Old Bailey was surfaced with wood blocks … the idea was that this would allow proceedings in court to be more audible since wood made less road noise than cobbles. But this day a huge iron cylinder was being painfully hauled along by eight sturdy navigators, tamping down the gravel beaten into crevices of the under-layers of the road and the clanging din was indescribable. So I would be forced to suffer the companionship of a peeler while I walked to the Exchequer Court.

  Hardly enamoured of being seen in such company, gruffly, I replied, ‘Well, perhaps if we took coffee….’

  There was a dilapidated eighteenth-century coffee house nearby, one not usually frequented by my colleagues at the Bar. I led Redfern there. We made our way through the narrow doorway into the dark-panelled interior and once seated it was not long before he came to the point. We had located ourselves in a quiet corner of the coffee house, seated on a knife-scarred oak bench. I ordered coffee from a stoop-backed servant, aware it was likely to be nothing better than coffee essence which, I tell you, my boy, had a distinctly odd taste. Like pigswill-flavoured mud. When it arrived, Redfern seemed to enjoy it.

  He had removed his tall varnished hat but his blue coat still marked him out as one of Sir Robert Peel’s men. Two men seated nearby glanced our way, drained their mugs quickly, and left. Redfern favoured me with a grimace that passed for a smile. ‘They’ll be up to no good, I’ll be bound.’ He glanced around, eyeing the other denizens of the coffee house. ‘First time I’ve visited this location. Not my beat, you see….’