The Penny Dreadful Curse

by Anna Lord

  Miss Carterett was seated behind her desk in the schoolroom; before her stretched five equal rows of ten desks. The children, ranging in age from six to twelve, were busy transcribing ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.’ from the blackboard onto their slates, endeavouring to emulate the beautiful copperplate lettering of their teacher. The sound of a pin dropping would have been deafening.

  Several children looked up from their work and word quickly spread by way of elbows and kicks to ankles that a visitor had arrived, and not the dreaded school inspector but a fashionable young lady, such as usually graced the pages of storybooks they were permitted to look at but not touch.

  Miss Carterett, writing feverishly, immediately closed the large tome which housed her lesson plans, and looked up quizzically, recognition dawning but the foreign name eluding her.

  “Good-morning,” she said pleasantly.

  “Hello, we met last night at the theatre. My name is Countess Volodymyrovna. I was wondering if I might have a word with you. I won’t take up much of your time. I can see you are extremely busy.” She turned and smiled luminously at the pupils, agog now with curiosity, their concentration ruined.

  Miss Carterett picked up the little bell on the corner of her desk and gave it a tinkle. The children immediately put down their stick of chalk and put their hands on their heads.

  “You have all been working so diligently we will break ten minutes early for a short playtime. Please put on your warm coats - monitors helping the younger children – and make your way into the yard. No running!” She watched as they rushed for the coat room. “Peter – what did I just say about running?” The question was rhetorical but Peter immediately slowed down to a safe gallop. An extra playtime was not something worth risking.

  Miss Carterett waited until the last child filed into the yard. “Follow me into the scullery. I can have my cup of bouillon while we chat. I’m afraid I’ve only got enough for one but I can make you a cup of tea. What did you want to speak to me about?”

  The Countess explained she had just had lunch. “I came to speak to you about a boy called Boz. He is about six years old and is one of the Snickelwayers.”

  The school mistress looked back over her shoulder, mildly surprised, while she put a small saucepan of beef broth on the coal range to heat up. “Yes, I know Boz. He’s Gin-Jim’s younger brother, the boy who was murdered yesterday. He sometimes comes to class but more often than not he plays truant and goes mudlarking.”

  The news that Boz was Gin-Jim’s brother took the Countess by surprise. Neither Mr Corbie nor Patch had mentioned it. “Younger brother?’

  Miss Carterett nodded as she stirred her beef bouillon. “Yes, is he in some sort of trouble? Has he been caught pilfering purses again?”

  “No, no, nothing like that, I just wondered if you could tell me where I might be able to find him. I’d like to speak to him about his brother’s murder.”

  Miss Carterett poured her steaming bouillon into a large china cup and hugged it with both hands. “He doesn’t have a regular home so I can’t give you an address and now that his brother is dead I think he will probably wander around a bit from group to group in a sort of daze. If he’s lucky Patch will take him under his wing. I’ll speak to the boys who come to reading lessons this evening and let them know you want to speak to him. I think it’s more likely he will find you, rather than the other way around, as long as he doesn’t think you’re going to cause him any grief. The boys who inhabit the Snickelways are wary of adults, even the well-meaning ones. They’ve been betrayed once too often.”

  8

  Gladhill

  Gladhill sat in an enclave of fine Georgian homes set in leafy gardens just off Goodramgate and offered a superlative view of the Minster from its double bay windows. A small porch separating the double bays greeted visitors lucky enough to be invited to the home of York’s most celebrated author, Mr Charles Dicksen.

  Dinner in the Dicksen household was served at precisely a quarter past six regardless of the number of guests, the occasion, or any upsets that may have occurred during the day. The nine children, including the youngest who was only two, ate their dinner at four o’clock and woe betide any child who arrived with unwashed hands.

  Dr Watson and Countess Volodymyrovna arrived half an hour prior to dinner as instructed per the invitation. They had both dressed formally in the belief that it would appeal to Mr Dicksen’s vanity. The Countess decided to wear a favourite gown of emerald green velvet with a daring shawl collar which came with a matching cloak edged in bright green marabou feathers that looked frightfully swish. Their host and the other two guests were already in the parlour. The hostess was conspicuous by her absence.

  Mr Dicksen conducted introductions with brisk aplomb. Reverend Finchley they had already met. He was blinking nine to the dozen as though the electric glare of the chandelier hurt his eyes. Sir Marmaduke Mallebisse was about mid-thirties, thick-necked, an outdoorsy type, muscular and athletic, with one of those complexions which reddens easily from wind, sun, changes in temperature and standing in close proximity to coal fires. He was starting to resemble a red brick wearing a blond toupee. A keen sportsman, he had just returned from a stint of big game hunting in Africa, having bagged two lions, a giraffe, a rhinoceros, a zebra and a trio of elephants. He was having them mounted, except for the zebra which would become a rug, and the elephants which were having their jumbo legs turned into umbrella stands. He used words like ‘jumbo’ a lot, along with ‘crikey’ and ‘dandy’. The end of his sentences finished with the word ‘what’ more frequently than not. It went something like this: Crikey, but that is a dandy view of the Minster through this jumbo window, what!

  He was easy to talk to, mostly because he did most of the talking, mostly about big game hunting. The listener was merely required to nod, look suitably impressed, and occasionally appear wide-eyed. What he had in common with an indoorsy man like Mr Dicksen was one of those social mysteries that are never adequately understood, though if the author was looking for a big game hunter to caricature, Sir Marmaduke would fit the bill nicely.

  Sir Marmaduke was holding court, regaling his captive audience with the perils of waterholes at dusk, what, when Mrs Henrietta Dicksen made a discrete entrance directly behind the butler who came to announce that dinner was served. It was a quarter past six. A less suspicious person might have said her entrance was fortuitous and well-timed. Someone of the opposite persuasion might have said her entrance was deliberate and exquisitely executed. Dr Watson was of the former persuasion, the Countess tended toward the latter.

  The big game hunter was rudely cut off at the knees mid-stream, or should that be mid-waterhole, what, by his indoorsy host.

  “I thought we agreed you would remain in your room, Henrietta?” The tone was sharp.

  She straightened her shoulders and gave a dignified tilt of her chin. “I did not want to give our esteemed guests the impression that I am unsociable.”

  “What about your medical condition?” he reminded, glaring at her swollen girth.

  “My condition is not medical and it should not render me unsociable.”

  “Nonetheless, it is unseemly.”

  ‘Perhaps to a man, but to a woman it is a fact of life. Women are no longer required to closet themselves away for nine months. York may be a medieval city but we no longer live in the Middle Ages. And this is my home.”

  “You will throw the staff into disarray.”

  “I have already spoken to Tavlock. He has already set an extra place at table.”

  “What about the acids and flux you have been suffering from? You have barely been able to look at food? The sight of dinner will make you ill.”

  “If I feel unwell I will excuse myself. Our guests will understand.”

  “You will make a spectacle of yourself as usual, Henrietta!”

  With that rebuke, their host took himself off to the dining room, leaving no one in any doubt as to who was making a spectacle of wh
om. Dr Watson, ever tactful, followed on the heels of their host after checking to make sure his companion was being offered a chivalrous arm. The Countess clung to the muscular limb that was proffered and was about to follow the doctor when she noticed Reverend Finchley and Mrs Dicksen hanging back somewhat conspiratorially by the jumbo window. They were definitely up to something. She took a few steps toward the door before feigning lightheadedness and leaning heavily on her escort.

  “Oh,” she panted breathily, “let me collect myself before we go any further, Sir Marmaduke.”

  The big game hunter drew himself up stiff and sharp. “Crikey, but these dandy drawing rooms can be hotter than the equator. They make the savannah seem like a jumbo ice box, what.”

  “Oh, quite, quite,” she agreed, fanning her face with her hand whilst attempting to listen in on the private tête a tête in the bay. Lip-reading was not an easy skill to master but it certainly helped that the couple was facing into the room. Or maybe not. She could have sworn Mrs Dicksen said: The door was locked as usual. He must have the key on him. And the deacon replied: We’ll never get in. It’s hopeless. At which stage she patted her cousin’s hand reassuringly: I’ll keep trying. Don’t despair…

  Dinner started with oyster soup and, since the women were outnumbered two to one, a heated discussion about the strategic military failures of the Boer War ensued.

  “I hear that pompous arse, Winston Churchill,” declared Mr Dicksen scathingly, “has travelled to Natal as a reporter for the Morning Post.”

  “Crikey, the namby-pamby dandy will get himself captured and shot, what,” declaimed the big game hunter.

  “No great loss,” observed their host sardonically.

  “Personal recklessness is one thing,” volunteered the deacon, “but a man who endangers a woman in the pursuit of career advancement is reprehensible. I believe his partner was talked into accompanying him.”

  “I believe she went of her own accord,” observed the Countess blandly.

  “A theatre of war is no place for a lady,” countermanded the doctor stridently.

  Mrs Dicksen, not wishing to fan the flames of her husband’s ire and possibly secure her own banishment, tactfully refrained from comment.

  “How is the murder investigation coming along, Countess?” enquired their host, changing the topic rather suddenly.

  “Painfully slowly,” she replied frankly.

  “The murders happened before we arrived in York,” expounded Dr Watson, a note of frustration creating an edge to his tone. “There was very little to see at the murder scenes and all our leads have led nowhere.”

  “I believe the victims were all authoresses of penny dreadfuls,” interposed the deacon.

  “Crikey, those blasted things!” blasted Sir Marmaduke. “If any lad at the chocolate factory or on my jumbo property is caught with one of those wretched rags he gets his marching orders on the spot. Why do the working classes need to learn to read anyway? It will do them no dandy good whatsoever, what! Upset the natural social order, that’s all! Farm animals know their place, and so must working men know it too!”

  The deacon turned to Dr Watson. “You’re an author. What is your opinion of penny dreadfuls?”

  “I don’t personally read them but I have nothing against them. They are not high-brow but as the Countess pointed out to me the other evening the lads who read them want something easy, entertaining, and cheap. Unlike Sir Marmaduke, I have no objection to the working classes learning to read.”

  “Well stated, doctor,” said the deacon. “Everyone must start somewhere and one day the boys who read dreadfuls may graduate to Sherlock Holmes or Great Infatuations.”

  The doctor turned to his host. “What are your thoughts on the matter, Mr Dicksen?”

  The author wiped the corners of his mouth with his napkin before drawing breath. “Penny dreadfuls do not compete with my readership and one day those readers, as the good deacon pointed out, will move on and possibly buy my books. In that regard I have nothing against them either. As for the natural social order, well, as long as people know their place, they can read what they like.”

  “There was a time only monks could read, and then those born to rule thought it might be useful. Now it has extended to most men,” enlightened the deacon. “The so-called natural social order is hardly natural and never static. Reading per se is not harmful.”

  “But ideas are!” blasted the hunter. “From ideas spring forth anarchy and chaos. The social order will be turned on its head! Revolution will follow! Crikey, that’s what reading dreadfuls will eventually lead to, what!”

  “As long as working class lads stick to dreadfuls and the educated classes stick to literature and women stick to romances the social order will survive,” pronounced Mr Dicksen. “But apart from Sir Marmaduke,” he quipped, lightening the conversation, “who would want to kill off Panglossian’s dreadfuls?”

  “Panglossian, what?” quizzed the hunter.

  “All the victims were authoresses with Panglossian,” clarified the doctor.

  “Crikey, it seems clear to me that some dandy is out to destroy the rich old Jew of York,” proclaimed the hunter, not unhappily. “The killer will be a Jew hater. Mark my words, what.”

  “That puts a different perspective on the crimes,” mused the doctor.

  “What about you, Countess?” asked Mr Dicksen. “Do you believe it is someone out to destroy Panglossian?”

  “I’m not convinced he is the target for the simple reason he refused to supply us with a list of authors’ names and their matching noms de plume. If he believed his authors or authoresses were in imminent danger and his own life at risk, you would think he would want to do all in his power to co-operate and catch the killer.”

  “The man is merely protecting the anonymity of his authors,” responded Mr Dicksen. “That is understandable and commendable.”

  “But not if it thwarts the investigation,” returned the Countess. “And then there is the death of the boy in the Shambles.”

  “Crikey, you mean the one strung up like a dandy carcass of beef, what?” blurted the hunter. “What can he have to do with it?”

  “Well, he runs errands for Panglossian,” explained the Countess. “In fact, he was carrying a parcel to Gladhill at the time he was killed. Isn’t that right, Mr Dicksen?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “And yet the parcel he was carrying is nowhere to be found. It is most curious.”

  “Curious!” decried Mr Dicksen. “Nothing could be less curious. The boy was robbed and killed for the parcel that turned out to be nothing but an unedited chapter of my next novel – worthless to anyone but me! The poor boy died tragically for nothing.”

  “You were in the Shambles about that time, dear,” said Mrs Dicksen quietly, speaking for the first time since they sat down to dinner. All eyes turned to her and then to her husband to hear his response.

  “Nonsense, Henrietta! What gave you that idea?”

  “You told your valet you were going to see your publisher and that you would take a shortcut through the Shambles instead of taking the carriage as you so often do at that early hour of the day. What time was it? Five or six in the morning?”

  “Oh, yes, I did that say that to Beckingham but I changed my mind a moment or two later. I wanted to think about my next chapter and I decided to circumambulate the city walls before hordes of tourists arrived in their droves. We authors often have a mental block that needs unblocking; something you fail to understand, Henrietta. I find walking does the trick. I stopped off for a bite of breakfast somewhere and didn’t get to Panglossian until about half past ten or thereabouts. The Countess can verify my time of arrival. She was in Panglossian’s office when I arrived.”

  He turned to his female guest for confirmation.

  “It was closer to eleven,” she confirmed.

  “A terrible tragedy for the boy,” sighed Mrs Dicksen, “and such a shame about your missing chapter, dear.”

  “Not at all!” he rebu
ffed. “I have a copy in my private study. A terrible thing for the boy, that’s all. You look peaky, Henrietta. I think it might be wise for you to go to your room before you over-tax yourself.”

  “I feel fine, dear. I will take cocoa with the Countess in the parlour while you men go off to the library for port and cigars. Perhaps Dr Watson may care to view your private study. I imagine a fellow author would be interested to see where you work,” she suggested sweetly.

  “Crikey, that’s a dandy idea, what,” seconded the hunter, disregarding the way his host blanched. “I have always wanted to see your inner sanctum. The way you guard it anyone would think you have some jumbo loot stashed up there!”

  “Yes,” added the deacon, not be left out. “I have always had a desire to see where you do your creative work.”

  Mr Dicksen jutted out his chin so that his hirsute glory stood horizontal to the table. “It is called a private study for the very reason it is private. No one is allowed to enter save for myself.”

  “What about your missus?” challenged the hunter.

  “Especially my missus!”

  “And your valet?” he pursued doggedly.

  “Not even my valet! Private means private. I cannot have people coming and going and upsetting my notes. It is unthinkable!”

  After dinner the two ladies retreated to the parlour. Mrs Dicksen looked drawn and tired. A tenth pregnancy was not only taxing, but dangerous, especially at her age. They settled either side of the fireplace with cocoa and some delicious Mallebisse Chocolate Blisses.

  “What do you think of the theory put forward by Sir Marmaduke that someone is out to destroy Panglossian?” asked the Countess, helping herself to a chocolate bliss from the heart-shaped box.

  Mrs Dicksen looked taken aback. “You’re asking me?”

  “I hope I have not offended you?”