The Slum Reaper_Murder and corruption in Victorian London

by David Field

  ‘Sorta,’ Venables advised him, ‘but I can’t read nowt.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ Percy grinned, ‘since I’ll take great pleasure in reading it all back to you.’

  ‘And then I’ll be kept separate from Mangler? I wouldn’t want ’im ter get at me, either ’ere or in Newgate. An’ ’e’s got a lot o’ friends in Newgate.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr Venables,’ Percy reassured him. ‘Once you’ve signed on the dotted, I’ll be very surprised if Mr Maguire makes it as far as Newgate.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next day being Wednesday, Esther was back to playing the seamstress, but this time with her heart even more firmly in her mouth than it had been on the previous occasions. She sat resignedly through more of Millicent Mallory’s patronising conversation and imperious instructions during morning tea and biscuits, then as soon as she excused herself in order to go upstairs and change ahead of her bridge club appointment, Esther transferred to the window seat and gazed anxiously out into the garden.

  As arranged, she waved her white kerchief in a signal and was very relieved to see a hand wave back to her reassuringly from the shrubbery, where Jack was hopefully well concealed. She held her breath as she saw him scuttle, head down, through the tangle of rhododendrons towards the stable block in which the brougham was kept, hoping that no-one else was gazing out of a front window, upstairs or down. The children were at school as usual and hopefully Jane and the cook would be busy in the kitchen, leaving only the coachman, Stanniforth, who was probably donning his riding coat in his own quarters, while Millicent Mallory was upstairs, preparing to look her elegant best.

  Jack reached the safety of the stables, prayed softly, then let out his breath in relief when he found the door unlocked. The horse whinnied slightly and shuffled in its stall as he slipped down in front of it to where the carriage was stored, then walked round to the back of it, hoping upon hope that Esther had correctly described it to him based on her fleeting observation of it.

  She’d been right, as always, and there was a sort of wooden bar above the rear wheel axle and two rods projecting from the rear of the passenger section that would do nicely for hand-holds. He hooked his walking stick over one arm and climbed onto the wooden bar; then he gripped both hand-holds firmly as he waited. After a few moments he heard the sounds of the horse being attached to the front end and held his breath as he prayed that he would not give away his hiding place by coughing and that Stanniforth would not choose this day of all days to inspect the rear of the coach.

  Millicent Mallory did her usual stately walk down the front steps to the coach and Stanniforth held the door open for her with his usual bow. From inside the sitting room Esther gritted her teeth and tried not to scream with frustration as each second ticked by during which Jack would be exposed, hanging on to the rear of the coach as it sat on the semi-circular front drive. Esther couldn’t see him because coach was not yet in line with the sitting room window, but anyone looking out of a front window further down the driveway would be perfectly positioned to see that the vehicle had a stowaway and sound the alarm.

  She let out a long-held breath as the coach moved off and she saw Jack clinging for dear life to the back of it. Fortunately, there were no other coaches on Heath Street and Stanniforth swung his to the left as usual, minimising the short period of time during which Jack was clearly visible from all parts of the house. As the coach disappeared behind the line of yew hedge, Esther whispered a brief prayer of gratitude and went back to her sewing.

  Jack was praying for totally different reasons as he clung precariously to the rear of the brougham, feeling every rut and jolt through his still healing leg as they trundled down the side street towards the main road, where he would of course become visible to anyone who cared to look. He was banking on the fact that it was not unheard of for young children to hitch rides on the backs of coaches in this manner, although he’d never heard of sober adults trying the same trick and it was barely midday according to the massive clock tower that they passed as they rumbled down Hampstead Road towards the city.

  Suddenly the coach came to a halt outside the railway station and Jack just had time to leap clear of the coach, his injured leg screaming in painful protest as he landed on it at the wrong angle, while Stanniforth climbed down and made a big fuss of opening the door for Millicent to descend into the roadway with a loud instruction that the coachman was to return to collect her at around seven that evening.

  Jack hobbled as fast as he could behind her as she approached the station ticket window and demanded a return ticket to Kentish Town. Jack ordered a single ticket to the same destination, only two places in the queue behind her, then followed her like a shadow along the somewhat rickety footbridge and down onto the platform. Inevitably, Millicent was travelling First Class, but Jack where to alight and two stops later he jumped off as he heard the porter announce in a loud voice that they had reached Kentish Town.

  Once outside, Millicent led him on a determined stride through a tangle of local streets that slowly become more salubrious the further they walked from the station, until they eventually turned into Burghley Road. Jack’s leg was on the point of giving up on him completely and he was in the process of cursing Uncle Percy for the fiftieth time when Millicent turned sharply into the entrance to a splendidly appointed three storey terraced house that stood back from the street behind a set of wrought iron railings.

  Jack crossed the road and leaned for support against a gas lamp pole in order to obtain a better look, just as the front door was drawn back and a liveried footman of some sort bowed in respect as Millicent swept into the front entrance, handing her hat to the flunky as she progressed down the thickly carpeted hall. Jack just had time to witness a tall gentleman enter the hall from a side room and embrace Millicent before the front door was shut and his mission was accomplished.

  Slowly Jack crossed the road and made a note of the house number, then leaned heavily on the front railings, regaining his breath and standing on one leg to relieve the pressure on the broken one. He was looking up and down as he did so and from the corner of his eye he caught movement in a room one floor up. Millicent and the same man who had welcomed her into the house appeared to be warmly embracing behind what they no doubt believed was the anonymity of a lace curtain, but someone had left the window open and the curtain was blowing slightly in the early afternoon breeze.

  Thoroughly relieved and contented with his afternoon’s work, Jack made his way back to Whitehall by bus, bracing himself for more biting verbal abuse from Sergeant Ballantyne for his excessively long dinner break from the tedium of his work in Records.

  Percy was dog tired after yet another sleepless night, but he had urgent work to do and for once he was going to thoroughly enjoy it. In one pub after another he spread the joyful tidings that Mangler Maguire had at long last been buckled and that sometime that afternoon he might be viewed and cheered on as he was led down the front steps of Bethnal Green Police Station to a waiting Black Maria and a custodial existence in Newgate until he faced trial on five counts of Murder. This was simply to square the books, Percy assured them, since even if the jury by some miracle acquitted him of those charges, he still awaited a somewhat adjourned appointment with James Berry, the troubadour of the trapdoor, in respect of his previous conviction, much delayed in its aftermath.

  A sizeable crowd had already gathered in the road outside as Percy ordered the coachman at the reins of the Black Maria to draw it up on the far side from the station entrance, ‘so that the relatives of those he murdered can get a better view.’

  ‘That’s against regulations,’ the driver reminded him. ‘What’s yer authority fer that?’

  ‘Five murder victims,’ Percy advised him as he walked back inside to order the escort party out into the street.

  They still had Maguire securely buckled at both his wrists and his ankles and he made a faintly ludicrous spectacle as he half shuffled, half hobbled, towards t
he paddy wagon, his once impressive height no longer an advantage as he was forced to double over in order to make progress across the rutted roadway, through two jeering lines of those whose fear had now become black hatred.

  Suddenly there was a shout from a burly man on the front row who was concealing something by his side.

  ‘Yer killed innocent folk an’ left the poor bastards in the rubble. But the rubble’s gonna take its revenge now!’

  He raised his arm to reveal a sizeable piece of broken masonry and hurled it at Maguire’s head, which it struck with a sickening thud. Maguire stumbled, but remained upright, as blood poured from a gash on his forehead, but the first missile had been the signal for a flurry of lumps of brick, tile, concrete and metal piping that struck Maguire on every conceivable part of his body like a hail of arrows in a Medieval archery storm. Maguire sank to his knees as a hand came through the front row of the incensed mob. The hand contained a sledgehammer, which the burly woman swung at his bowed head, smashing it like a soft boiled egg.

  A howl of appreciation rose up, as if an unpopular gladiator had just died in the Coliseum and the woman raced up the street surrounded by a large crowd obviously intent on giving her cover as she made good her escape. The constables who had been leading Maguire to the wagon and who had fled at the throwing of the first lump of brick, now raced back down the front steps of the police station and retrieved Maguire’s inert form from the roadway, dragging it back indoors to loud oaths and yells of triumph from the mob. Percy leaned against the Black Maria, lit his pipe and smiled.

  ‘You planned that, didn’t you?’ Inspector Mitchell yelled, red faced, as he burst into Percy’s office twenty minutes later.

  Percy looked up unconcerned. ‘How can you plan a spontaneous street riot?’

  ‘You know what I mean. You deliberately ordered that paddy wagon to the other side of the road, knowing what the mob would do to our prisoner!’

  ‘Yes and no,’ Percy replied calmly. ‘I ordered the wagon to the other side of the road, certainly, but only in order that those who’ve lived in fear of Maguire for the past few months could be assured that we had him securely in custody.’

  ‘A likely story! You know he’s dead, I suppose?’

  ‘That happy intelligence was brought to me a few minutes ago.’ Percy smiled seraphically.

  ‘And now we’ve got no-one to put on trial for five murders, you imbecile! I was warned about you before you even arrived here. Every person who you’re convinced is guilty of a capital crime finishes up dead before they get to court, as if you regard yourself as some sort of avenging angel. How are we supposed to close the books on these five murders?’

  ‘Read the statement obligingly dictated to me by Mr Venables. He was there on each occasion and since Maguire is no longer available for trial for the main offences, we’d be well advised not to try putting Venables on trial as his accomplice.’

  ‘So, what do we charge him with?’

  ‘His part in the prison break. But let me speak to him first, because he holds vital information regarding another matter that I’m investigating.’

  Back down in the cell area, Venables was just as eager to talk as he had been on the previous occasion.

  ‘Is it true what they’re sayin’ — that Mangler’s dead? Why am I still down ’ere an’ not in Newgate?’

  ‘First things first, Mr Venables. It’s correct that your former partner in crime Mr Maguire was unfortunately stoned to death by the mob in a somewhat Biblical fashion. Which means, of course, that we only have you left to answer for those murders that you conveniently signed up for.’

  ‘Yer bastard! Yer promised me that Mangler’d be the one ter cop fer them an’ that I’d get off light!’

  ‘That might still be possible, Mr Venables,’ Percy assured him with a sick grin. ‘But only “might”. In fact, I might consider doing you just for your part in the jailbreak and forgetting all about the murders, in exchange for some information which for me is very important, but to you might seem trivial.’

  ‘Like what? Tell me whatever yer wanna know an’ I’ll tell yer, if it means I only get done for the breakout.’

  ‘The final murder — at least I hope it was the final one,’ Percy began. ‘The girl in Short Street. Were you a witness to that one?’

  ‘O’ course, like I told yer the other day. What about it?’

  ‘Who was she, exactly?’

  ‘Depends who yer ask. She were really a daft lass called Clara Manders.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘Sure I’m sure — I knew her, didn’ I?’

  ‘Go on, then — tell me all about her.’

  ‘She lived up Shoreditch way an’ she weren’t right in the ’ead, if yer know what I mean. She shoulda bin a nun or somefin’, ‘cos she was always goin’ on about God and the Virgin Mary. But she were barmy — yer know? One time she reckoned she talked ter an angel what were sittin’ on the church spire.’

  ‘So why did Mangler want her dead?’

  ‘Ah well, yer see, she got it in ’er ’ead that God were wantin’ ter punish Mangler fer all ’is sins an’ she took ter preachin’ on a box outside the local theatre, callin’ on folks ter rise up against ’im in the name o’ the Lord. She couldn’t see what sorta danger she were creatin’ for ’erself.’

  ‘So Mangler silenced her?’

  ‘Yeah. One night me an’ another bloke broke inter the doss ’ouse where she were livin’ an’ took ’er out inter the yard, where Mangler done ’er in wi’ this big ’ammer what ’e always used. Then we put ’er in a wheelbarrer an’ took ’er down ter Short Street an’ dumped ’er in the rubble. But we was told to make out it were a girl called Emily Broome what we’d done fer. That were another lass what Mangler knew an’ she give ’im ’er ’andbag ter leave near the body.’

  ‘So you’re quite sure it was Clara Manders who was killed?’

  ‘Dead sure — like I said, I knew ’er. Pretty enough lass, but definitely a slate loose.’

  ‘So, the body in the rubble definitely wasn’t Emily Broome?’

  ‘It were made ter look like ’er, but Mangler said ’e needed ’er fer summat else.’

  ‘Thank you very much, Mr Venables. You can expect to be transferred to Newgate later this morning, charged only with your part in the attempt to spring Martha Crabbe.’

  Venables beamed back at him and seemed to sag with relief.

  ‘Yer a real gent, Mr Enright, an’ I’ll make sure ter tell all me friends that.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘Great news about Maguire,’ Jack confirmed as he poured the wine that Percy had just uncorked, ‘and thanks again for the wine. The roast should be out of the oven in a few minutes. That right, Esther?’

  ‘Only if Uncle Percy confirms that my days as a seamstress to that dreadful Millicent Mallory are over,’ Esther sniffed as she laid out the cutlery and reached for her own glass of wine, raising it in the air. ‘Here’s to the fact that I no longer need to earn my living with a needle and thread. From now on it’ll be just Jack’s rips and cuts, although while he’s been doing a desk job they’ve been kept to a minimum. That said, he must have got some grease from the back of the coach on his trouser turn-ups and I’m not sure how to get that out.’

  ‘You did well there, Jack,’ Percy assured him, ‘and it may come as no surprise to you when you learn whose address it was that you followed Millicent Mallory to.’

  ‘I’ll take a guess at Victor Bradley,’ Jack suggested.

  Percy nodded. ‘You wouldn’t need the talents of a Nostradamus to work that out, but you’re right.’

  Jack picked up the carving set that had been a wedding present and clattered the knife against the long fork in a silent gesture for Esther to remove the lamb roast from the oven.

  ‘What did your last slave die of?’ she said sarcastically.

  ‘Something she caught off the grease from my trouser turn-ups,’ Jack quipped back. ‘Uncle Percy, would I be abl
e to claim the cleaning bill from the Met?’

  ‘Certainly, if you could explain why you were lurking outside a house in Kentish Town when you were supposed to be head down in Records.’

  The next few minutes were taken up in the removal of the roast from the oven, the carving of it into slices, the placing of the vegetables in the centre of the table and several expressions of appreciation of Esther’s cooking skills from mouths full of lamb, potatoes, carrots and gravy. Esther was the first to clear her mouth sufficiently for speech, mainly because she had eaten less.

  ‘You still haven’t confirmed my release from sewing duties for that awful Millicent Mallory, Uncle Percy.’

  Percy cleared his mouth and smiled. ‘Most certainly, but you still haven’t quite completed your service to the Metropolitan Police.’

  ‘My unpaid service, you mean?’

  ‘How would you like a companion, baby sitter, domestic assistant and friend?’ he asked.

  ‘Isn’t that why I married Jack? And what makes you think that the next experiment will be any more successful than the last? But are you serious?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘We don’t have any room for a live-in domestic.’

  ‘You won’t need one, trust me. Only there’s a girl currently being accommodated in Bethnal Green Police Station in need of a kindly soul to take her under their wing and lead her from the darkness of her current life into a bright shining future among real people who actually care about her.’

  ‘You should have been a poet,’ Jack remarked admiringly.

  ‘You should also stop speaking nonsense.’ Esther pouted. ‘What are you up to this time?’

  ‘Just trust me and take this girl in hand when I release her,’ Percy requested. ‘I want you to accompany her to what passes for her home, find her somewhere to wash and smarten herself up, then see if you can’t find suitable clothes for her and bring her back here.’