The Penny Dreadful Curse

by Anna Lord

  The doctor’s mouth dropped open and he stared at her in a queer mixture of credulity and incredulity, speechless, much as those who are witness to a religious miracle and are rendered dumbstruck. Another sherry downed in one gulp served to bring him back to the land of the free-thinker.

  “Are we talking three murderers or two or one?”

  “There is no time to elaborate. Now, did you speak to the landlady in Scarcroft Lane?”

  “Yes, and you were right. I don’t know how you do it. I suspect it might be witchcraft. If only I believed in such supernatural guff. Anyway, Robbie Redbeard had recently dropped hints about finding herself a beau. She didn’t say who it was, just that he was a respectable gent and a bit shy, and that was why she had not yet introduced him to anyone. She went alone to Friargate Theatre as she often did but she was planning to meet up with her secret beau later and bring him home for supper. The landlady had laid out a tea table using her best china in the front parlour and Robbie Redbeard had bought two currant buns that same afternoon.”

  The Countess beamed blissfully at her counterpart. “You’re an absolute darling, Dr Watson! That point about supper with her beau was never mentioned by Inspector Bird. Yet it is extremely relevant. Robbie Redbeard intended to meet someone on her way home from the theatre. That person has never come forward. Why?”

  “Because he was too shy,” volunteered the doctor, feeling chuffed.

  “No! Because he was the one who threw her over the bridge! And it has to be the same man who was timing himself. The action fits the crime. Did the landlady say whether she told the police about the supper for two when she first reported the missing person?”

  “Yes, she said she did. She also said she didn’t report the author’s disappearance until the third day because she thought Robbie Redbeard was spending time with her shy beau and she did not want to cause a scandal or ruin things romantically for her favourite tenant, whom she greatly admired. But after three days she grew increasingly worried and went to the police station.”

  “Yet the man never came forward. Now if we can only get a wee bit of a description from the bargeman we have our killer. And it stands to reason that if he killed Robbie Redbeard then he killed the others. I even have a motive.”

  Her eyes checked once more the parcel wrapped in brown paper that Xenia had kept safe for her and which now sat on Mr Hiboux desk. She made a mental note to take it upstairs to her bedroom before everyone arrived.

  At this point Mr Hiboux entered with some steaming hot bouillabaisse smelling of the sea, thick crusty slices of bread and some fresh country butter, and feeling ravenous, they settled down to eat without even changing their clothes. Before the little man disappeared back to the kitchen, the Countess informed him there would be sixteen guests for supper. She affected her most coquettish voice and asked if he would mind serving a small repast at the end of the evening: bread, cheese, pate de foie gras, rillette, terrine, pickled onions, slices of cold ham, and any other provisions he had on hand. Naturally, she would reimburse him generously for his trouble.

  The bargeman arrived a few minutes after seven, looking unduly nervous; his beady eyes darting hither and thither like a rat about to be sprung in a trap. Dr Watson noted the man had washed his filthy hands and brushed the marsh mud off his boots as he led him into the inglenook, served him a small glass of excellent sherry, and made small talk until the glass had been drained and he was feeling more at ease. The Countess then materialised draped in a gown of burnished gold taffeta that rustled every time she made the slightest move. The bargeman found the shimmery sound and the shimmery colours mesmerizing and thought perhaps he had entered some sort of shimmering dream.

  “Good evening, Mr…?”

  “Smedley.” He pulled himself upright as he said it.

  Dispensing a shimmering smile that had the hint of gold in it, she repeated the name mellifluously. “Good evening, Mr Smedley, thank you for coming at such short notice. I understand you have been telling my friend about the man you saw on Skeldergate Bridge who appeared to be timing himself.”

  She paused, allowing him to catch up and nod.

  “Can you offer a description of this man?”

  The bargeman coughed to clear his throat. “He was a big gent…”

  “When you say big do you mean tall or stout?”

  “Tallish.”

  “Was he also stoutish?”

  The bargeman shrugged carelessly. “He was rugged up against the cold so it was hard to tell. He could have had a few layers on that bulked him up. I wouldn’t call him stoutish, though he weren’t skinnyish neither. He looked well-fed, if you get my drift. He had a straight back, I remember that. He weren’t stooped like a lot of the men who work the river.”

  “Tall and well-fed and straight-backed,” she repeated, smiling encouragingly, “Would you say he was an outdoors man?”

  The bargeman nodded readily. “Yes, an outdoors man, not a man who bends over some books all day long.”

  “How did he walk?”

  “He walked across the bridge, stopped and checked his watch, then he went back again across the bridge. He did that more than once. That’s why I took notice, see. The first time I didn’t think nothing of it, see, but when he did it a second time, I thought, aha, this cove up to somethink?”

  “I meant how did his walk seem to you? How was his gait? Was it hurried? Was it measured and slow? Was it done with short steps or long strides?”

  The bargeman thought for a moment. “Well, it varied, see. He walked with a big stride first up and then checked his watch and ran off in a big hurry the same way he had come. But when he returned the second time a short time later he seemed to be taking girly steps, like he had somethink stuck up his bum, er, I mean, more measured and careful, so it was both, see, first the one and then the other.”

  “Now, were there any distinguishing features?”

  “Not from what I could tell from where I was standing on the jetty, see. He had his coat collar pulled up and he had a thick muffler round his neck. It hid half his face. His hair weren’t black, that I can tell you, though I cannot say with the bad light for sure what colour it was, see.”

  The Countess was well-satisfied with Mr Smedley’s description. She had provided him ample opportunity to embellish all he liked but he had painted the same vague picture he had done first time round. More importantly, it was not so much how the man looked, but rather how he did not look. She pulled some money out of a hidden pocket in her gown and gave it into his hand. It jangled richly.

  “Thank you, Mr Smedley, you have been most helpful, now, I don’t want you to leave just yet. If you go into the kitchen and remain there until I call for you I will be most grateful. Mr Hiboux, the proprietor of this establishment, will serve you some excellent fish stew and my servants will offer you a coffee and a cigarette or two.”

  Dr Watson waited until the bargeman disappeared. “Well, what do you think?”

  “A most credible witness, the best sort, one who does not know what he has witnessed and thus has no need to make things up. It will be interesting to see his reaction when our guests are all gathered together. I don’t want him to come out of the kitchen until the end. Would you be so good as to let Fedir and Xenia know my wishes and tell them they are to keep him occupied until such time as I call for him?”

  The grandfather clock was chiming eight when through the back door came Patch and Boz. They reported that ten panes of glass had now been broken and that someone had thrown rotten tomatoes at the door of the bookshop and someone else had pushed dog turd through the letter slot. Magwitch had retreated to the trundle bed in the kitchen in a state of nervous agitation and was sleeping with one eye open. All the letters had been delivered.

  The Countess pressed some money on the boys for their efforts, which they were reluctant at first to accept, thinking it wrong to profit from Mr Corbie’s misfortune. Then she sent them back into the kitchen where Xenia would feed them until such time as
they would join the others. She instructed them to sit on the stairs when it was time to come in.

  A few minutes later, Miss Carterett arrived through the front door that led directly into the poky parlour dotted with dozens of candles that seemed to get swallowed up by the perennial darkness that lurked in the nooks and crannies. There were puffy circles under her eyes and her hair looked as if it hadn’t been brushed for days, merely swept up haphazardly each morning using bobbing pins. Staying at the Minerva was clearly taking its toll on the school mistress. The violent death of her friend, Miss Titmarsh, and the fact she was being stalked by a murderer probably didn’t help. She sank into a chair by the gateleg table and absently nursed the glass of sherry proffered by Dr Watson.

  Miss Flyte breezed in next, exuding youthful optimism and the scent of violets. She chose a seat next to Miss Carterett, whom she had met during her time at the Minerva, and rattled off whatever came into her head, her starry eyes flitting to the door every few seconds in the hope of seeing her new love interest arrive in the flesh; sensually fingering her sherry glass in anticipation of the happy event.

  Reverend Finchley slunk in unobtrusively. No one noticed him for a moment or two. He appeared distrait and ill at ease as he folded himself into a chair facing the fire and blinked at the flames. News of the death of the publisher had hit him like a hammerblow. He viewed it as another setback to getting his stories into print. He was in two minds whether to revise them before resubmitting them or just burn them all and have done with it.

  Mrs Henrietta Dicksen and Sir Marmaduke arrived together a few minutes after the deacon. The lady, dressed in dark grey wool, was offered a comfortable wing chair to park herself in. She waved away the sherry and declined all offers of refreshment. Sir Marmaduke chose the seat nearest to Miss Flyte and immediately launched into the lack of law and order in York. “Crikey, that’s what comes of reading dreadfuls!” he asserted to the doe-eyed young lady. “Murder, mayhem, and the natural order of things turned on its dandy head, all because of penny dreadfuls. The lower classes are not meant to read. They don’t have the moral capacity for dealing with ideas.” He called for some red wine in a goblet. He didn’t drink sherry. Sherry glasses were designed for poncey foreigners.

  Miss Flyte hung on his every word and soon had him recounting stories of the African savannah. Youth and beauty being what it is, the big game hunter’s voice softened perceptibly each time he met the dewy gaze of his late friend’s ex-mistress and no one who saw them that night doubted it would be long before the pair of them was booked aboard a steamer ship headed for the Dark Continent and the jumbo adventure of a lifetime.

  Mrs Ashkenazy, looking resplendent in a black satin gown, arrived on the stylish arm of Monsieur van Brugge, who was sporting a tan frock coat and a jaunty silk cravat. Mrs Dicksen’s eyes immediately lit up at the sight of the handsome, blond, Dutch painter with the goatee beard. He appeared equally smitten and moved at once to enquire how she was feeling, waiting only long enough for Mrs Ashkenazy to express her condolences. Condolences were likewise relayed back to the Jewess and those who did not know it quickly realized that the dark lady was the daughter and sole beneficiary of the recently deceased titan of publishing.

  The arrival of the Jewess seemed to stir the deacon out of his self-pitying lethargy. He pulled himself up with dignity and a bold brave beam shone between each blink. It was like looking at a lighthouse that had suddenly been switched on. He immediately gave his seat over to the lady in black and positioned himself behind her chair. In turn, she looked up at him now and then with tender puzzlement, wondering who he reminded her of.

  It was twenty minutes after eight when Mr Thrypp stepped through the door, slightly breathless from running the gauntlet of rabble rousers who had set up a picket line at both ends of the Shambles in anticipation of the bookseller being released by the police. He greeted all those he knew with a crisp how-do-you-do? A courteous bow of his head was directed at those he was unacquainted with just in case he needed to seek new employment in the near future. He bowed low when expressing his sympathies to Mrs Ashkenazy and his keen eyes lingered over Miss Flyte before he reasoned he had no hope of competing with a baronet who was also a big game hunter. He accepted a sherry and slipped into the inglenook which he appeared to have all to himself.

  Hot on the heels of the indefatigable secretary came Dr Pertwee, looking slightly irritated and put out by the last minute invitation. He was dressed in tweeds and looked more like a country doctor than a medical scientist. His rosacea had flared up since the Countess had seen him last and it appeared to embarrass him. He kept his head tucked down and after the briefest of introductions chose a chair well away from the fire, positioned midway between the stairs and a grandfather clock.

  Inspector Bird, having the good sense to arrive via the row at the rear, came in through the kitchen door with a lifeless Mr Corbie in tow. There was no need for handcuffs or a police guard. Mr Corbie had all the animation of a straw man and looked as dangerous as last year’s scarecrow. He hardly recognized the boys in the kitchen who leapt up excitedly at the sight of him. He could barely remember their names. He seemed dazed as he shed the large coat he had been made to wear and peeled back the muffler that half hid his face. He couldn’t understand what was happening. One minute some police had arrived at the bookshop to search the premises, next they had found some manuscripts in the dust bins out back. He had been arrested, led past a mob hurling violent abuse at him, dumped in a police cell, then hauled out again and dragged here to the Mousehole.

  Gently, Mr Hiboux led his old friend to the inglenook and pressed a glass of sherry into his arthritic hand. Mr Corbie sipped it slowly as if it might be poison. It had no bitter almond taste, no taste at all really, and he swallowed it in one gulp, hoping this time that it might be poison after all, and the nightmare called Life might soon end.

  20

  Dreadfuller News

  The invitees who had gathered in the poky parlour felt nervy and on edge. This last week had claimed its pound of flesh in more ways than one. Six dead authoresses, a boy strung up on a meat-hook, Mr Dicksen shot by his own wife in a robbery gone horribly wrong, and the titan of publishing, Mr Panglossian, murdered inside the safety of his own inner sanctum. They had all read the missives sent by the Countess and knew she meant to unmask the killer. Those who had been invited by word of mouth had intuited as much. The atmosphere was funereal. No amount of candlelight could dispel the gloom that clung to the darksome air.

  Inspector Bird had chosen to position himself in the little alcove where Mr Hiboux kept his desk. It was a private corner, a bit out of the way, but he was not one for hogging the limelight, and because he was taller than most he could keep an eye on all fifteen people at the same time. Should anyone choose to flee, he would nab them. From the corner of his policeman’s eye he could even see the two Snickelwayers who had snuck in at the last moment and were now perched on the rickety stairs. He wondered briefly what they were doing there. It galled him that the Countess meant to show up the police by unmasking the killer in some dramatic fashion. He did not approve of unorthodox procedures and dramaturgy. Theatrical denouements might work for penny dreadfuls but not in real life. As far as he was concerned they already had the killer and this was just a bit of play-acting for the sake of puffing-up female vanity.

  Dr Watson stood by the wonky front door, one hand tucked casually into the pocket of his tweed jacket, nervously fingering the trusty revolver that was worth its weight in gold. His chest felt heavy and his throat felt tight. He was having difficulty breathing and he didn’t think it was due solely to the hot stagnant air inside the Mousehole.

  In the kitchen sat Fedir and Xenia, the strong, stocky, loyal brother and sister from the Steppe who would gladly give their lives for their mistress - and had done so more than once. If anyone attempted to flee out the back door, that person would be in for a rude surprise.

  On the opposite side of the kitchen table sat the ra
tty man who smelled like rotten fish, drank like a fish, smoked gold-tipped cigarettes in front of the coal range and thought all his Christmases had come at once.

  Ye Olde Mousehole Inne had never hosted such a strange crowd on such a strange night, a night in mid-November with the fog closing in and everyone on tenterhooks, fearing they were about to be strung up on a hook in the Shambles any minute.

  The Countess skipped preliminaries so as not to prolong the suspense as she took the floor and scanned the cirque of tragic souls.

  “I will make my case as quickly as possible and then leave it to others to decide what to do. I believe we have been dealing with two separate murders and thus have two separate murderers on our hands. Both murders, however, are linked to Panglossian Publishing and the secretive world of penny dreadfuls. I will deal with the death of the boy known as Gin-Jim first since his death is the least complicated, though not the least cruel or violent.”

  “Three factors are imperative in solving Gin-Jim’s murder: Timing, handedness and literacy. I will take timing first. The murder occurred at first light, a time when not many people are out and about. Yet we know Mr Charles Dicksen was out walking at that time of the morning on that particular day. According to his wife and verified by his valet, Mr Dicksen had elected to walk from Gladhill to Panglossian Publishing on Coppergate rather than taking his carriage. His walk may have taken him several different ways across the city and one of those ways is through the Shambles. His arrival at the residence of Miss Flyte, who lives on the Pavement directly at the end of the Shambles, has been confirmed. He arrived as dawn was breaking. His proximity to the Shambles at the time the boy was killed is therefore striking.”

  The Countess allowed the first fact to settle before moving on. Miss Flyte dropped her gaze and blushed furiously. Sir Marmaduke shifted uncomfortably. Mrs Dicksen sat in dignified silence, listening intently, the long-suffering look in her eyes gradually diminishing.