‘The fact remains,’ Dickens said, ‘that Bella has vanished. It is as if she never existed. Yet my friend and I have not enjoyed the privileges for which we paid handsomely. May 1 ask for reimbursement of —’
The bald man took a couple of paces toward them and seized Dickens’s collar. ‘So you want your money back, do you? Well, you’ll have to whistle for it!’
‘That’s right!’ the fat woman shouted, as if glad to find a target for her fury that was made of flesh and blood. ‘If you two know what’s good for you, you’ll clear off now like these other lily-livered bastards!’
‘Please assure me,’ Dickens said, rubbing his neck as the bald man released his grip, ‘that there is no question of your summoning the police.’
The fat woman stared at him. ‘Think I was born yesterday? No fear of that, mister. Them peelers would like nothing better than to pin something on me.’
‘But the body —’ Collins began.
‘Jack will find a graveyard for it,’ she interrupted. ‘Don’t you fear.’
‘At the bottom of the Thames, I suppose?’ Dickens said.
The bald watcher scowled at him. ‘You heard what she said. It’s as easy for me to chuck three bodies in the river as one.’
Dickens caught his friend’s eye and nodded toward the stairs. ‘Very well. We will go.’
‘And don’t come back,’ the fat woman said. ‘You’ve brought trouble to this house, you two. Theft and murder. Now, Jack, you see to the body while I get Nellie to help me look for that murderous little bitch.’
Dickens hurried down the stairs, with Collins close behind. As they reached the ground, they heard the brothel-keeper calling Nellie’s name, but Collins could not see the maid in the parlour. He presumed that she was in the front room, where the red candle burned. Dickens caught hold of his wrist and manhandled him down the passageway and out into the fog.
* * * *
An hour later the two friends were ensconced in the more congenial and familiar surroundings of the Ship and Turtle in the heart of the City. Exhausted on their arrival after racing from Greenwich, they had quaffed a couple of glasses of ale to calm their nerves with scarcely a word of conversation.
An extraordinary evening,’ Collins said at length. ‘Expensive, too.’
Dickens shrugged, his expression shorn of emotion. So energetic by nature, he seemed in an uncharacteristically reflective mood. ‘For the Honourable Thaddeus Whiteacre, undoubtedly.’
‘Well, I realise you are a man of means, old fellow, but you must be bitter at having spent so much for so little reward.’
‘Oh, I’m not so sure about that, Wilkie.’
Collins stared at his friend. ‘I really think that it is time that you were frank with me. Your behaviour tonight has been most extraordinary. I thought that we were out for a little innocent amusement...’
‘I agree that what happened was neither innocent nor amusing.’
‘...and instead we ended up running through a peasouper, fleeing from a madam’s hired ruffian. Even since we’ve arrived here, you’ve spent most of the time staring into space, as if trying to unravel the most ticklish conundrum.’
‘In which endeavour I believe I have succeeded. You are right, Wilkie. I do owe you an explanation. But first - let us have another drink.’
‘You almost sound as if you are celebrating a glorious triumph,’ Collins grumbled as a waiter replenished their glasses.
‘In a sense,’ Dickens said calmly, ‘I am. Your health, dear Wilkie!’
‘But we have been present at the scene of a brutal slaying!’ Collins protested. ‘What is worse, the circumstances are such that we cannot inform the police. I might be a young nobody, but you are Dickens the Inimitable, the most famous writer in England. Not even your friendship with Inspector Field could save you from disgrace if the truth came out. He could not hush up your presence at the scene of the crime, even if he wished to do so. The author who patronised a house of ill repute on the night of a murder - how the scandal sheets would love that story!’
‘True, true.’
‘You have not yet told me how you became acquainted with Bella,’ Collins grumbled.
‘Forgive me, Wilkie,’ Dickens said. ‘Undoubtedly you deserve an explanation for the night’s events.’
‘In so far as you can explain the inexplicable.’
‘Oh, I shall do my best,’ Dickens said, with an impish smile. ‘I met Bella one night when my nocturnal ramblings took me to that God-forsaken tavern the Rope and Anchor. I was sitting just where you and I sat this evening. Looking round, I noticed a young woman in the company of Jack Wells, whom you met this evening. Her profession was apparent from her dress, if not from her demeanour, yet I was struck by her quite astonishing beauty. She is no more than seventeen, Wilkie, but her face and figure were as fine as any I have seen in a long time. More than that, there was an innocence and purity about her that I found mesmerising. It was as if, by some miracle, she had yet to be tainted by her profession. But it was plain that she was in the depths of misery, above all that she was in mortal fear of her brutish companion. I surmised that she was a dress lodger and that the madam of the house where she plied her trade had instructed Wells to keep an eye on her.’
‘That is the way these people run their business, is it not? A watcher dogs the dress lodger’s footsteps to make sure that she does not run away from the brothel.’
‘Exactly. As I studied the girl, I found myself speculating about her history, imagining the sequence of events that had reduced her to such dire straits. It can happen easily enough, you know.’ A dreamy look came into Dickens’s eyes. Collins had seen the same expression when he acted before the Queen at Devonshire House, throwing himself body and soul into his part, so that any deficiencies in thespian talent were amply compensated by the intensity of his imaginative investment in his performance. ‘A young woman, perhaps an orphan, becomes destitute and is “rescued” by an apparently kind-hearted older lady. She is offered salvation in the form of board and lodging, only to learn - too late! - that the price is higher than she can afford. Possibly she is accused of a petty theft - a put-up job, with the threat of criminal prosecution supposedly bought off by the bribing of a bogus police officer. By whatever means, the madam ensures that the victim stays deeply in her debt. The poor wretch must repay by selling the only wares that she possesses. Oh, yes, Wilkie, there are female slaves in plantations across the ocean that enjoy liberty for which a dress lodger in a mean London brothel can only offer up hopeless prayers!’
Collins swallowed a mouthful of beer. ‘It is pure wickedness.’
‘Indeed. I hold that a woman is free to sell herself, just as a man is free to buy. That is the way of the world, and has been throughout history. But when all that the woman earns goes to the harridan who keeps her in thrall... Well, emboldened by drink, I decided that I must do something. This young woman might only be one of a thousand dress lodgers in this city, but I vowed to myself that I would set her free.’
‘But you knew nothing of her.’
‘Only what I had seen in her lovely, wistful face. Yet it was enough, Wilkie. I decided to bide my time and when the watcher succumbed to a call of nature, I approached the girl. I urged her to come with me and escape from her guard while she had the chance. But she was terrified and suspected a trap. I could see in her eyes that she yearned to believe that I was offering her a chance to start a new life, but her fear of Jack Wells and his mistress was stronger than the faith she could muster in the words of a complete stranger. Within a minute I realised it was no good. I had time merely to ask her name and where she lived.’
‘Bella, from Mrs Jugg’s lodging, the House of the Red Candle in Greenwich,’ Collins murmured.
‘Precisely. Even as she gave me those few details, a look of panic crossed her face, and I realised that Jack Wells was returning to take charge of her. I made myself scarce - but not without whispering a promise that I would see her again and set her free
.’
‘Hence tonight?’
‘Hence tonight.’ Dickens sighed. ‘I had not reckoned that Fate would intervene in the sordid shape of her regular client, the Honourable Thaddeus Whiteacre.’
‘I suppose he abused her terribly.’
‘No doubt,’ Dickens said softly. ‘Yet Bella does not lack spirit. She did not trust a stranger in a tavern to rescue her, but she was prepared to save herself. So she conceived an audacious scheme of her own, to kill Whiteacre and escape with all the funds he kept in his wallet.’
‘You are sure that she did murder him?’
Dickens gave him a pitying look. ‘Who else?’
‘Indeed. But how?’
‘There, my dear Wilkie, I can only speculate.’
‘For the Lord’s sake, Dickens, you can’t leave it at that!’
For a moment Dickens eyed his friend, scarcely able to contain his amusement. ‘Very well. If you wish to hear my theory, then I shall be glad to share it with you. I make just one condition.’
‘Name it.’
‘That, after tonight, we never speak of this matter again. No matter what the circumstances. Can I trust your discretion?’
‘Naturally,’ Collins said in a stiff voice.
‘I mean it, Wilkie. We must hold our tongues forever. Two lives depend upon it.’
‘Two?’
‘Those of Bella and the maidservant Nellie Brown.’
Collins frowned. ‘It was hardly the maid’s fault that she led Whiteacre to his death and that Bella contrived to flee from the House of the Red Candle. If indeed she did escape.’
‘Oh, I think she did.’
‘But how?’
Dickens finished his ale and put the tankard down on the table. ‘I helped her to escape.’
‘We have been together all evening,’ Collins said. ‘How could you have done so?’
Dickens grinned. ‘When I saw the chance for her to get away, I whispered that she should seize it. My fear was that she might be overcome by remorse at the enormity of her crime and confess her guilt to the madam. I do not condone the taking of life, but tonight I am tempted to make an exception.’
‘But I don’t —’
‘She masqueraded as Nellie Brown,’ Dickens interrupted. ‘You saw the real maidservant yourself. She was waiting at the Rope and Anchor for her friend. Remember how the drunken women mocked her, and all because of the scar on her cheek?’
‘That was Nellie?’
‘I am sure of it. Bella had borrowed her clothes, so as to fool Mrs Jugg. I suppose they slipped out of the house while Mrs Jugg was dozing and under cover of the fog sliding in from the Thames, Bella put Nellie’s garments on under her own dress. Once she was back in the upstairs room, she reversed the outfits. She must have strapped her bosom down - I recall that she was quite formidably endowed, Wilkie! - and used cosmetic preparations to mimic the scar on her friend’s cheek. She is a couple of inches taller than Nellie, and she needed to stoop and kept her head bent so as to avoid close scrutiny. She was relying on Mrs Jugg’s poor eyesight and Jack Wells’s lack of imaginative intelligence. When, in Nellie’s character, she showed Whiteacre into the room and then revealed herself as Bella, no doubt he was amused by the impersonation, perhaps even excited by it. We can speculate as to the inducement she offered to persuade him not only to strip for her but to allow her to tie him up. When he was at her mercy, she stabbed him, but with insufficient force to kill him straight away. Then she stole his money. Knowing Whiteacre’s penchant for heavy spending, I suspect she found enough to keep her and Nellie out of the brothels forever and a day. She committed a wicked crime, but I cannot find it in my heart to condemn her for it.’
‘She must have been trying to escape when we saw her coming down the stairs.’
‘One can scarcely imagine her feelings when she was forced to take us back to the room,’ Dickens said softly.
‘And when she heard her victim’s dying words. No wonder she vomited when faced with the horror of his corpse. But how did you guess what had happened?’
‘Guess?’ Dickens raised his eyebrows in amusement ‘The scar was my clue. It bore such an uncanny resemblance to that which disfigured the woman in the Rope and Anchor that the whole scheme revealed itself to me. But Bella made one mistake.’
‘Which was?’
‘When she put on the make-up, she forgot that she was applying it to an image in a looking-glass. And so her scar ran down the right cheek. But Nellie’s was on the left.’
<
* * * *
Peter Robinson
The Magic of Your Touch
‘Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth, I heard many things in hell.’
—Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’
One night, many years ago, I found myself wandering in an unfamiliar part of the city. The river looked like an oil slick twisting languidly in the cold moonlight, and on the opposite bank the towering metal skeletons of factories gleamed silver. Steam hissed from tubes, formed abstract shapes in the air, and faded into the night. Every now and then a gush of orange flame leapt into the sky from a funnel-shaped chimney.
I was lost, I know now. The bar where I had played my last gig was miles behind me, and the path I had taken was crooked and dark. The river lay at my right, and to the left, across the narrow, cobbled street, tall empty warehouses loomed over me, all crumbling, soot-covered bricks and caved-in roofs. Through the broken windows small fires burned, and I fancied I could see ragged figures bent over the flames for warmth. Ahead of me, just beyond the cross-roads, the path continued into a monstrous junkyard, where the rusted hulks of cars and piles of scrap metal towered over me.
Out of nowhere, it seemed, I began to hear snatches of melody: a light, romantic, jazzy air underpinned by wondrous, heartrending chords, some of which I could swear I had never heard before. I stopped in my tracks and tried to discern where the music was coming from. It was a piano, no doubt about that, and though it was slightly out of tune, that didn’t diminish the power of the melody or the skill of the player. I wanted desperately to find him, to get closer to the music.
I walked between the mountains of scrap metal, sure I was getting closer, then, down a narrow side path, I saw the glow of a brazier and heard the music more clearly than I had before. If anything, it had even more magic than when I heard it from a distance. More than that, it had the potential to make my fortune. Heart pounding, I headed towards the light.
What I found there was a wizened old black man sitting at a beat-up honky-tonk piano. When he saw me, he stopped playing and looked over at me. The glow of the brazier reflected in his eyes, which seemed to flicker and dance with flames.
‘That’s a beautiful piece of music,’ I said. ‘Did you write it yourself?’
‘I don’t write nothing,’ he said. ‘The music just comes out of me.’
‘And this just came out of you?’
‘Yessir,’ he said. ‘Just this very moment.’
I might lack the creativity, the essential spark of genius, but when it comes to technical matters I’m hard to beat. I’m a classically trained musician who happened to choose to play jazz, and already this miraculous piece of music was fixed in my memory. If I closed my eyes, I could even see it written and printed on a sheet. And if I let my imagination run free, I could see the sheets flying off the shelves of the music shops and records whizzing out of the racks. This was the stuff that standards were made of.
‘So you’re the only one who’s heard it, apart from me?’
‘I guess so,’ he said, the reflected flames dancing in his eyes.
I looked around. The piles of scrap rose on all sides, obscuring the rest of the world, and once he had stopped playing I could hear nothing but the hissing of the steam from the factories across the river. We were quite alone, me and this poor, shrunken black man. I complimented him again on his genius and went on my way. When I got behin
d him, he started playing again. I listened to the tune one more time, burning it into my memory so there could be no mistake. Then I picked up an iron bar from the pile of scrap and hit him hard on the back of his head.
I heard the skull crack like a nut and saw the blood splash on the ivory keys of the old piano. I made sure he was dead, then dragged his body off the path, piled rusty metal over it, and left him there.
I had to get back to the hotel now and write down the music before I lost it. As luck would have it, at the other side of the junkyard, past another set of crossroads, was a wide boulevard lined with a few run-down shops and bars. There wasn’t much traffic, but after about ten minutes I saw a cab with his light on coming up the road and waved him down. He stopped, and twenty minutes later I was back in my hotel room, the red neon of the strip club across the street flashing through the flimsy, moth-eaten curtains, as I furiously scribbled the notes and chords etched in my memory on to the lined music paper.
The Best British Mysteries 3 - [Anthology] Page 51
