The Slum Reaper_Murder and corruption in Victorian London

by David Field

  ‘I already told you that we don’t have the accommodation. How much is this all going to cost?’

  Percy reached for his wallet and extracted a banknote. ‘Here’s ten pounds. Let me know if you spend more.’

  ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ Esther said.

  Percy nodded. ‘You’ll have to trust me. Have I ever misled you?’

  ‘Which of those several occasions do you wish to discuss first?’

  Jack decided to intervene. ‘I feel sure you haven’t finished with me.’

  ‘No indeed I haven’t,’ Percy confirmed. ‘I hope I’m not the only one who’s inclined to the theory that when Mrs Mallory goes to that house in Kentish Town, it’s not just to meet her lover Mr Bradley. She’s got her twins hidden away in there, almost certainly. That’s why she hasn’t displayed any obvious distress regarding their official disappearance. They haven’t disappeared at all.’

  ‘So, we keep watch on the place?’ Jack asked.

  Percy shook his head. ‘They wouldn’t be that stupid. The children are still tiny and can be tucked away somewhere in a back room, well out of sight. They’re hardly likely to take them down the street in a perambulator, are they?’

  ‘Then what do you suggest?’

  ‘You mentioned that when you looked up, you saw the two of them in an upstairs room, embracing?’

  ‘Yes, but that just suggests that they’re lovers. What’s that got to do with our gaining access to the house in order to locate the twins?’

  ‘Well, supposing that when you were looking up at the window, quite casually, you’d seen the man attempting to strangle the woman? What would you, as a law-abiding citizen, have done?’

  ‘Called the police, obviously and they ... oh, now I get it.’

  ‘Next Wednesday, at around three in the afternoon.’ Percy grinned back at him, as Esther shook her head in exasperation.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jack stood uncertainly outside number 37 Burghley Road, then gave a sigh of relief as several police wagons rumbled around the corner and came to a halt. Uniformed officers piled out of the backs of them, four of them carrying a heavy iron bar that had four handles attached in order that the bar could be used in a forward motion to smash down doors. Percy alighted from the passenger side of the lead vehicle and raised his eyebrows in a questioning gesture as Jack came in right on cue.

  ‘This one — upstairs front right,’ he advised them in what he hoped was a convincing voice of mounting alarm and impending shock, adding, for good measure, ‘You took yer bloody time!’

  Percy gave the order and four hefty uniformed officers took one webbing handle each as they raced up the front path, pulled their arms back, then rammed the metal bar into the heavy front door, which sagged slightly with a splintering noise, but held.

  ‘Again!’ Percy yelled and this time the door floor open, smacking back into the wall of the front hall, narrowly missing the domestic staff member who had been approaching it to investigate the noise. Uniformed constables piled into the hall and Percy ordered them to start at the top of the building and work their way down. An irate figure appeared from a room on the first floor, leaning over the railing in his shirt sleeves, in the process of lifting the braces on his trousers back over his shoulders.

  ‘What the Hell’s going on down there? Oh, you,’ he added as he spotted Percy in the front hall. ‘Didn’t we meet in my office?’

  ‘We did indeed, Mr Bradley, and my apologies if there’s been some sort of mistake, but we were advised by a gentleman in the street that a lady in here was being strangled to death.’

  ‘Preposterous! What lady, exactly?’

  Percy looked up at a uniformed constable who was already on the first landing and yelled up to him. ‘Look in that room that this man just came out of!’

  The constable disappeared through the door in question and everyone in the house heard the scream and the demand for an explanation. The constable came back out, leaned over the balcony and confirmed Percy’s suspicion.

  ‘There’s a lady in there right enough, Sergeant. Not a lot of clothes on, but very much alive.’

  ‘I demand an explanation!’ Bradley bellowed. ‘That lady is my guest and she was taking her afternoon nap. What in God’s name is going on?’

  ‘Just doing our duty, Mr Bradley. We had no idea this was your house, of course, but as I said a moment ago, we had a report that a lady was seen through an upstairs window, being strangled by a man. Naturally we had to investigate and so…’

  ‘You’ve seen the lady in question and she’s quite obviously still alive, so take your men and get the Hell out of here, before I contact my very good friend the Police Commissioner.’

  ‘If you’re going to do that, sir, then the least I can do is to be able to demonstrate, when questioned, that we made a thorough search of the whole house,’ Percy replied.

  ‘This is outrageous!’ Bradley bellowed, just as Millicent Mallory appeared at his side, fully clothed, and peered over the balcony at Percy.

  ‘You!’ she all but spat, as she turned to speak to Bradley. ‘This man came to our house enquiring after that domestic who made off with the twins. A grubby little police person called “Arkwright”, or something.’

  ‘Enright,’ Percy corrected her. ‘This would seem to be an afternoon for coincidences, albeit perhaps unfortunate ones, but clearly you two know each other, since I believe that your husband’s in partnership with this gentleman.’

  ‘He most certainly is,’ Millicent insisted, ‘and I’m here on business.’

  ‘The sort of business that gets discussed in a bedroom?’ Percy asked sarcastically.

  Millicent bristled. ‘How dare you, you impudent oaf? What are you inferring?’

  ‘I’m inferring nothing.’ Percy grinned up at her, delighted to be able to correct her English. ‘I am, however “implying” that the room from which you just emerged is a bedroom and that you and Mr Bradley here were engaging in a “business” as old as Adam and Eve. And to judge by the looks of guilt on both your faces I’m about to “infer” it as well.’

  ‘You disgusting little peasant!’ Millicent screamed down at him. ‘Just because people behave like that in the pigsty environment in which you were no doubt raised, you have no right to assume it of your betters. You haven’t heard the last of this, believe me!’

  ‘I haven’t seen the last of it, either,’ Percy insisted as he walked to the end of the hall and mounted the staircase to where Millicent and Bradley were standing, heading for the open bedroom door. He looked pointedly into it from where the irate couple were blocking his passage and smirked. ‘That’s the most luxuriously equipped meeting room I ever saw and I think I can see the end of a large double bed. May I?’

  ‘No, you may not!’ Bradley yelled as he stepped forward and grabbed Percy by his jacket collar. Percy reached up, gripped his hand and twisted, smiling as he heard the bone snap at the same time that he heard Bradley scream in pain.

  Percy turned to the uniformed constable still on the landing. ‘Book him for obstruction.’

  ‘You bullying bastard!’ Millicent screamed as she slapped him hard across the cheek.

  ‘And book her for assaulting a police officer in the course of his duty,’ Percy added as he walked into the bedroom, where the pulled back covers and rumpled pillows betrayed what sort of business meeting had been taking place.

  He walked back onto the landing and looked down into the hallway, through which Bradley and Millicent were being escorted towards the yawning gap that had once been a front door, in full view of a handful of domestic servants who had gathered in the hallway for the free entertainment.

  He walked down the flight of stairs and waited in the hall as one by one the constables came back downstairs to announce that they had found nothing.

  ‘Nothing at all?’ he demanded of each of them in turn and as they confirmed that the rooms were empty of people, he began to swear. Then finally, in desperation, he called all
the men back down and issued one final instruction. ‘Go back up there and search again. Cupboards, wardrobes, under beds, inside desk drawers — anywhere where things might be hidden.’

  ‘What exactly are we looking for, Sergeant?’ one of the men asked.

  Percy grimaced. ‘This may sound ridiculous, but we’re looking for two infant boys. Twins, about eighteen months old. You’re probably all asking yourselves “How could we possibly have missed them?” but you didn’t know then what you were looking for. So, go back and try again.’

  As he stood there quietly consoling himself with the fact that he’d at least managed to arrest two very unpleasant people, one of the uniformed maidservants sidled up to him.

  ‘Beggin’ yer pardon, officer, but there was a couple o’ babies ’ere until recently. We never got to see ’em properly, ’cos they was kept upstairs wiv a nursemaid, but they was sent ter the country a few days since an’ they ’aven’t bin back ’ere since.’

  ‘Do you know where exactly in the country?’ Percy enquired.

  ‘No, sir, but the master ’as this place in Norfolk somewhere.’

  ‘Yes, so I’m advised. Thank you ...?’

  ‘Mary, sir, but don’t tell the master that I said owt to yer. Only them’s lovely little children an’ I’d ’ate ter think o’ them separated from their mother.’

  Percy called off the ongoing search, then gave instructions for the two prisoners to be driven down to Scotland Yard and placed in separate interrogation rooms. He sent a wire to Norwich police and after thinking deeply while tapping a pencil thoughtfully against his teeth he set off for his first interview.

  Victor Bradley was the epitome of outraged dignity as he sat on the other side of the narrow table in the windowless, and almost airless, room, with a uniformed police constable seated next to him.

  ‘I believe that my wrist’s broken,’ he complained before Percy had even taken a seat, ‘and when my solicitor arrives I’ll be instructing him to make a formal complaint and file an action for damages. And you can’t keep me here forever on a trumped up charge.’

  ‘When — and if — you get to see your solicitor, Mr Bradley, he’ll assure you that obstructing a police officer in the course of his duty is an offence that our courts take very seriously. As are corruption in the conduct of a public office and wasting police time. I’m just awaiting confirmation that George and William Mallory have been found safe and well on your Horning estate, then I’ll be able to add kidnapping to the list. If they’re not safe and well, it’ll be Murder. Twice.’

  ‘Ridiculous!’ Bradley asserted. ‘Even a bone-headed plod such as you must realise by now that it was never a proper kidnapping. Spencer Mallory planned it, in order to get access to his wife’s trust money, which we needed for the development project in Bethnal Green.’

  ‘But from Mr Mallory’s perspective, it all went very wrong, didn’t it? Why did you not return the children?’

  ‘Have you not even worked that out yet? As you discovered, Millie — Mrs Mallory, that is — and I have been conducting an affair for some years now. She planned on leaving Spencer with those two whining brats that he’d ruined, but she wanted the twins for herself, so we simply slipped that dreadful man Maguire a bit extra to hand the children over to us once he’d gone through the pretence of kidnapping them from that wet girl that the Mallory family employed as their nanny.’

  ‘When did Mrs Mallory learn of the plot to extort the money from her family trust?’

  ‘As soon as I told her what Spencer was planning. We realised that it would be a golden opportunity to get the twins away from Spencer, making it easier when it came to the divorce that she was planning to petition for. So, you see, you can’t charge her in connection with the fake kidnapping, because she knew all about it all along and was happy to go along with the pretence that she was desperate to get the twins back.’

  ‘How did you come to engage Mr Maguire’s services?’

  ‘He was some lowlife scum that Spencer knew of, who he was already employing to carry out the evictions and for a brief while before that the rent collections. He was more than happy to earn a little extra for a trip to Hampstead Heath.’

  There was a tap on the door and a uniformed sergeant poked his head into the room and gestured with a jerk of his head that he wished to have a word with Percy, who returned to the room two minutes later with a broad smile.

  ‘We’ve located the twins alive and well, so now it’s just the remaining charges.’

  ‘You don’t have a hope of making those stick,’ Bradley sneered, ‘so may I go now?’

  ‘Not just for the moment, Mr Bradley,’ Percy smiled back gloatingly. ‘We’ll just see how well I can make that corruption in public office charge stick when I’ve taken Mr Mallory the good news regarding the finding of the twins, and the bad news about how they came to be in Norfolk.’

  Two rooms down, Millicent Mallory wasn’t looking quite so glamorous and the body language between her and the grossly overweight police constable who sat silently next to her was not the most fluent.

  ‘The good news is that we’ve located your twin sons alive and well, Mrs Mallory,’ Percy beamed sarcastically, ‘but then you knew all along where they were, didn’t you?’

  ‘You can’t keep me here like this, in all male company,’ Millicent complained. ‘It’s not seemly and this oaf seems to find my bosom of considerable interest.’

  ‘That’s something he has in common with Mr Bradley, of course,’ Percy smirked. ‘I agree that it would be better if we employed females here in the Met, to act as escorts for female prisoners, but as yet we don’t. However, from time to time we find it efficacious to employ females in what you might call “assumed” roles. You’ve met one of the best already — my nephew’s wife, Esther, who’s so good with a needle and thread.’

  ‘That’s pure dishonesty!’ Millicent protested.

  Percy nodded. ‘Almost as bad as faking the kidnapping of one’s own infant children. And before you deny it, Mr Bradley’s already obligingly confirmed what I already suspected anyway.’

  ‘It’s not an offence to kidnap one’s own children, surely?’

  ‘Probably not, but it is an offence to defraud the trustees of a family trust, so we’ve got both you and your husband for that. I gather that Mr Mallory wasn’t in on the part of the plan in which you didn’t return the children as promised, so we can only charge you and Mr Bradley with that. Assault, false imprisonment or something along those lines.’

  ‘Even your own children?’

  ‘Probably that as well, although that will be a matter for the lawyers. Although Mr Bradley will be paying a high price for your affections, will he not? Assuming that the divorce goes through — and no-one could deny that your husband would have good grounds after all this — Mr Bradley still seems to have committed himself to bringing up another man’s children.’

  ‘They’re his children, you dolt!’ she yelled back at him. ‘Had you not worked that out for yourself?’

  Percy was taken aback for a moment, but soon regathered his composure.

  ‘No, I must admit that you had me fooled on that particular point of detail. But it just makes the entire bizarre business more credible to a jury. In addition, of course, it will make Mr Mallory all the more determined to have his revenge, when I tell him.’

  ‘You surely don’t propose to tell him yourself?’ Millicent demanded in an outraged tone.

  ‘Why not?’ Percy smiled back as he rose to leave. ‘After all, there have to be some perks in this job.’

  Just over an hour later Percy ignored the protests of the woman behind the front desk as he threw open the door to Mallory’s office in The Strand and strode in without an appointment, without an invitation, and without any hesitation. A small middle-aged man with spectacles on the end of his nose looked round in astonishment as Percy jerked his head in an instruction for him to leave.

  ‘What the Hell is the meaning of this?’ Mallory demanded. �
��This man is my Conveyancing assistant and we’re discussing important matters.’

  ‘He may well prove to your replacement as a partner, Mr Mallory,’ Percy snarled back. ‘Now get him out of here, unless you want what we have to talk about made the subject of office gossip for weeks.’

  Mallory nodded for the little man to leave and as he scuttled out Percy took a seat without being invited.

  ‘Despite the preliminary appearances, Mr Mallory, I’m here with some good news. We’ve found your twin sons and they’re unharmed.’

  ‘God be praised!’ Mallory said. ‘Where were they — in some low den in the East End?’

  ‘No, on an estate in Norfolk. Horning, to be precise. Ring any bells?’

  ‘The only person I know who has land there is my business partner and very good friend Victor Bradley.’

  ‘He’s also a very good friend of your wife’s, I’m afraid.’ Percy couldn’t help but smile, as Mallory’s face went dark.

  ‘I take it that was some sort of unworthy innuendo? A hint at her marital infidelity with my best friend?’

  ‘A bit of a cliché, isn’t it? Which is why I wouldn’t have employed it by way of a lie.’

  ‘Where’s your proof, you vile slanderer?’

  ‘I had occasion to visit Mr Bradley’s home this afternoon, where your wife was about to take her usual pleasures in lieu of what she told you was her regular appointment at her bridge club. Both he and she were discovered in a state of undress and there was a bedroom on the first floor that appeared to have been recently occupied.’

  ‘That’s purely circumstantial.’

  ‘Let’s not walk around each other, Mr Mallory. They both confessed to their adultery earlier this afternoon and Mr Bradley was within his rights to have the temporary custody of the twin boys, since they are — according to Mrs Mallory — his.’

  Mallory sank back in his chair, his face ashen and his hands trembling. Finally, he found his voice.