The Secrets of Gaslight Lane

by M. R. C. Kasasian

  ‘Miss Middleton has some experience in medical matters,’ my guardian declared, ‘and I have written an amusing dissertation on the classification of bite marks, but neither she nor I have ever come across such a thing before we met you.’

  Easterly felt his teeth. ‘But my lower front teeth stick up and down a bit.’

  ‘That is because they are crowded for space,’ I told him. ‘But the teeth themselves are all the same length. We have seen another case since then, though.’

  Hesketh spread his fingers. ‘So it is not so rare after all.’

  ‘Daniel Filbert,’ I said.

  The name flicked through Austin Hesketh.

  ‘Mr Nathan’s friend? What about him, miss?’

  I paused to give him time to mull over that name. ‘I believe you paid for his funeral.’

  ‘Then you are mistaken, miss.’

  ‘God shall know you,’ I quoted, to no response.

  ‘Snushall told us that the man who arranged the funeral spoke in a feigned French accent.’ Sidney Grice slipped his little finger through the jackal ring on his watch chain.

  ‘And Veronique told me that Easterly sometimes imitates her speech,’ I recalled.

  ‘Like an indigenous arboreal rodent, Miss Middleton discovers information, secretes it and promptly forgets where she has hidden her hoard,’ my godfather remarked sourly.

  ‘But hi do not know anything about it,’ Easterly protested, at a loss as to what he was being accused of.

  ‘I do not suppose you do,’ I agreed. ‘On the subject of accents, you told me that you taught yourself how to speak by copying a toff, Easterly. Which toff was that?’

  ‘Mr Mortlock, of course,’ he told me.

  Hesketh patted his colleague’s arm affectionately.

  ‘Mr Nathan did say Hi,’ he agreed. ‘But he was not really a toff.’

  ‘We had Filbert’s body exhumed,’ Sidney Grice declared. ‘Dug up, in layman’s language.’

  Hesketh’s lips worked each other. ‘What of it?’ he managed at last.

  ‘Daniel Filbert was murdered,’ Sidney Grice said. ‘Strangled and lowered into a pit of lime.’

  ‘The body that was found in the north wing?’ Easterly asked eagerly. ‘Hi heard about that.’ He poked a teaspoon handle up and down his left arm.

  ‘It occurred to us that he might be related to Hesketh,’ I declared, ‘having the same dental abnormality and being found so close by.’

  ‘I have no family, miss,’ Hesketh protested, ‘except my mother and my brother who is childless.’

  ‘Then you will not care what happens to his body.’ Sidney Grice cupped his face in his hands.

  ‘I am not sure I follow you, sir.’ Hesketh’s voice was getting husky. ‘Surely it will be reburied now that it has been examined.’

  ‘Professor Duffy plans to keep the corpse as a specimen for his lectures,’ I said. No amount of self-control could have masked the horror unleashed in Hesketh by that statement and I had to harden my heart to continue. ‘Normally, a dead person is the property of the next of kin to dispose of lawfully as they wish. But, in the absence of any relatives, anatomists can take possession of a body for medical teaching and research.’ Hesketh put a hand to his collar with a faint choking noise, but I forced myself to carry on. ‘They can remove and pickle any part they choose. I expect his head will end up on display in a jar.’

  Hesketh loosened his cravat a fraction. ‘Is that really the case, sir? With all due respect to Miss Middleton, I will only believe it from your lips.’

  ‘For once Miss Middleton speaks the truth,’ Sidney Grice confirmed. ‘Professor Duffy is thinking of putting Filbert’s naked cadaver on display in his new museum of pathology.’

  Hesketh closed his eyes and swallowed. He cupped his brow in his right hand, put his elbow in a puddle of tea and exhaled noisily.

  ‘Very well,’ he decided. ‘I am sure that you suspect it already, but I shall tell you. Daniel Filbert was my son.’

  94

  ✥

  The Snowman

  I LOOK IN on Danny. There shouldn’t be much left by now, but something feels heavy as I pull on the rope and, when it breaks though the surface, his face is still intact. Even his eyes. They are open and looking up at me, white as frost in the moonlight.

  Danny sits up.

  ‘Sorry about this,’ I say.

  He’s covered in snow.

  ‘But it’s your own fault in way.’

  Danny looks at me blankly.

  ‘You were the one who had a go at me,’ I tell him. ‘You told me I was too kind, helping people who don’t help me back. Where were they when you had Hanratty on your back – you said – or when you had to take your family to Paris? Who put their hand in their pocket then? Why not do something for yourself for a change? There’s an idea – do something for Nathan.’

  And so I did. I did it all for Nathan.

  Danny nods, I think.

  ‘What a couple of pickles we are,’ I say, ‘me a murderer and you not even able to rot down there in that cesspit.’ I feel quite chatty now. ‘It was Lionel who first called me Nutty,’ I remind him. ‘I was always Natty to the Garstangs, but he got it wrong. I didn’t mind. He meant no harm by it. But then it became a family joke and I hated it. I was always a joke to them.

  ‘They had all the money and they fed me crumbs. I deserved better; my mother told me that once. And so I took better.’

  Danny looks puzzled and so I explain, ‘They kept threatening to disinherit me and they did for a while, after they found out about the picture and the gambling. I couldn’t risk them doing it again.’

  Danny seems about to say something but he changes his mind.

  ‘If I had tied Lionel tighter, he wouldn’t have been able to loosen the cord enough to strangle himself,’ I tell Danny. ‘It was kindness, not me, that killed Young Lion.’

  Danny tries to stand up but the rope snaps. It has rotted, even if Danny hasn’t, and he flops back into the quicklime as if he’s had one too many, but he doesn’t sink and I have to get a long broom. He looks frightened as I push him back under, as if I’m killing him all over again, and then I’m frightened too.

  I shut the trapdoor.

  I’ll never go back.

  If only I could.

  95

  ✥

  The Viewing of Bodies

  IT WAS EASTERLY who spoke first.

  ‘Hi am very sorry to hear that, Mr Hesketh. No one should suffer such pain alone.’ And, not being so presumptuous as to pat his superior’s hand, he patted his own consolingly.

  ‘The agony is no better for the sharing of it.’ Hesketh hid his face in both hands. ‘Danny was my only child. I saw him the day before the murders. We would meet for a drink sometimes when I went out on an errand. When it came out he had been arrested for affray, I was shocked. Danny was so good-natured and sensible. He had never been in trouble with the law. Mr Nathan explained that it was not their fault and that he had paid Danny’s fine, for which I was truly grateful. It saved my son from a prison sentence. Then Mr Nathan said that Danny had decided to make a fresh start. The idea of having a criminal record upset him greatly and he was determined to work his passage to America,’ Hesketh recounted. ‘I was obviously very perturbed by this news. Danny was a delicate young man. He had been weakened by severe bouts of pneumonia and had never set foot on a ship. I could not imagine what work he would do on board or in America.’

  ‘A nation of savages colonized by savages,’ Mr G declaimed.

  ‘I thought it was probably just a whim – he was always a bit of a dreamer – and that I could easily talk him out of it.’ Hesketh pressed a thumb and second finger on to the corners of his eyes. ‘But I never saw or heard from him again.’

  ‘Were you not suspicious?’ I asked.

  ‘Anxious,’ Hesketh told me. ‘But suspicious of what? Of whom?’

  ‘So how did you find out it was him?’ I saw a sparrow land on the window sill.
<
br />   Hesketh twiddled the top button of his waistcoat. ‘A father knows when his son is dead. Danny was such an affectionate son, I knew that if he could contact me he would. I began to frequent the city morgue. There is a disgusting man called Parker who let me view the bodies for a shilling a time.’

  ‘You know that is against the regulations?’ I watched another sparrow join the first one.

  ‘Only for Parker.’ My guardian seemed edgy. Perhaps he could hear the sparrows squabbling twenty feet behind him. I could only see their tussle.

  ‘Hi cannot himagine what you must have gone through every time.’ Easterly went pink.

  ‘I only went when there were reports in the papers,’ Hesketh said flatly. ‘Unidentified males, often dragged out of the Thames, anyone estimated to be between Danny’s age when I last saw him and what he would be now. And then, when I saw that a body had been found after many years in the north wing, I knew.’

  Hesketh drew his fingertips repeatedly over his brow.

  ‘And you traced him to Snushall’s undertakers,’ I remarked, contributing to my godfather’s annoyance, ‘where you covered your face and spoke in a French accent.’

  ‘It is the only accent I can do.’ Hesketh looked abashed.

  I paused before adding, ‘And there you saw Danny.’

  ‘My boy.’ Hesketh stroked his own cheek. ‘He had been turned to leather but I still knew him. How could I not? He was perfectly preserved. Mr Snushall took every penny I had – my life savings – but what did I need the money for?’

  ‘Hi bet you did him proud,’ Easterly said.

  ‘He did,’ I agreed.

  ‘If only that were an end to it.’ Sidney Grice rubbed his shoulder. ‘We all know what was found on your son’s body.’

  ‘Danny was not a pickpocket.’ Hesketh’s neck muscles bulged.

  ‘But what did Mr Mortlock say to the policeman who brought it?’ I pressed.

  Hesketh tugged at his hair. ‘I do not remember exactly.’ He let go. ‘But he was horrified.’

  ‘So you have found him,’ I quoted.

  Hesketh shied away from the words. ‘I think he said found it.’

  ‘Him,’ I insisted.

  ‘And with that one word – Austin Anthony Hesketh – it all fell into place.’ Mr G punched his own shoulder to drive away the pain. ‘Mr Mortlock – the boy with whom you had played and the man you had served so devotedly – slipped his own watch into his friend’s pocket to give him an excuse to start a fight. Your son, loyal to the end, tried to help him, and Nathan made sure they were both arrested. The nearly perfect alibi.’

  ‘I never knew how he got out, until I made him tell me,’ Hesketh stated matter-of-factly.

  ‘And how did you do that?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t answer that, Mr Hesketh,’ Easterly urged. ‘They are trying to trick you.’

  I changed tack.

  ‘Those wooden wedges interest me,’ I announced. ‘They were all dented – except for yours.’

  ‘I was probably more careful with mine, miss.’

  ‘It was not used,’ I insisted. ‘If you had told me you did not use it because you trusted your friends, I might have believed you, but why pretend you had used it when you had not?’

  ‘Mr Grice has taught you well,’ Hesketh said without rancour.

  ‘But not how to share information,’ Mr G remarked sourly.

  ‘I learn by example,’ I told him. ‘Did you mention the rings or Hesketh’s release form?’ I did not wait for a response but resumed my pressure on the valet. ‘Answer the question please, Hesketh.’

  ‘What does it matter if Mr Hesketh used his wedge or not?’ Easterly protested.

  My godfather watched me with something vaguely approaching a smile.

  ‘Because only the killer would know that he did not need to lock himself in at night,’ I reasoned.

  Hesketh pondered my statement. ‘I did worry when I saw you examining it,’ he admitted at last.

  ‘Don’t say any more, Mr Hesketh,’ Easterly burst out. ‘They don’t know anything.’

  ‘Take your junior colleague’s advice by all means,’ Sidney Grice agreed. ‘And let me tell you exactly what went on.’

  *

  The coal-hole lid is still off. I slide it back into place and stand up and, as I glance back at the house which is mine now, the curtain moves on the second floor, just as it did when I wedged the lid, and I think, who the hell can that be? And then I realize it’s only a breeze. I would have just got rid of the Garstangs if that curtain hadn’t twitched and made me think I had been seen. So the others all died because of a draught.

  But I don’t have time to think about that now. Is that somebody walking their dog? At this time? It’s that woman from number 4 across the Crescent. I put my head down and run.

  96

  ✥

  The Last Day

  SIDNEY GRICE FOLDED his arms.

  ‘You were never on that train,’ he said. ‘As soon as you realized what had happened, you wrote to your brother to send you a telegram. I imagine you said that you wanted an excuse to visit home. There is always a weak link in every story and it usually centres on the over-abundance of evidence provided. Most people asked to prove where they had been would have some difficulty in doing so, unless they were with a large group of acquaintances. They do not usually get pretty French maids to purchase their tickets and cause confusion about the price, ensuring that the seller remembers the transaction. Nor do they stagily draw attention to themselves with the guard on both legs of the journey. Nor do they manage to retain their tickets on a morning when the barriers were fully manned by inspectors. There is so much filling in the sandwich of your story that the bread cannot contain it. John Smith.’

  Hesketh looked blank. ‘Who, sir?’

  ‘The West Coast Railway guard,’ I reminded him, though I suspected I did not need to do so.

  ‘A common enough name,’ Mr G remarked. ‘But, armed with the information that his parents were Alfred Smith and Mabel Smith née Lineker, the unsung Birth Certificate Investigators, Serpett and Fritt of Goodge Street, were able to ascertain that the Smiths were cursed with five children – the irksomely named John and two other boys, Harold and William, who according to their simple headstone at Nunhead Cemetery were taken by the angels in infancy.’

  ‘I am not sure where this is going.’ I stretched my back.

  ‘Then listen and learn.’ My guardian brought out his snuffbox. ‘Their firstborn child was a girl, as was the third, and the Smiths let their imaginations run amok with their selection of feminine names. The first was registered as Angela Smith, born on ninth of April 1837, and the second as Ann, who became a seamstress. Angela, on the other hand, went to work as a maid with her mother in the house of a Mr and Mrs John Weaver. To pander to the impatience of my audience, I shall reveal that Mr Froume, the Marriage Detective, has discovered that Miss Angela Smith gave herself in wedlock to a Signor Juan Innocenti, newly escaped from the dreary backwater of Madrid.’

  Hesketh was clutching the table edge, his fingerplate beds squeezed crimson with blanched tips.

  ‘This marriage was fruitless, however, and Mr Innocenti’s fancy was taken by Angela’s sister, the more youthful and buxom Ann, who, falling prey – as foolish girls are prone – to the oleaginous unctuousness which passes for charm in Hispanic quarters, eloped with him to vilest Paris of all places, some five months and two days after his wedding to Angela.’ Sidney Grice opened the box and tipped it upside down, but nothing fell out of it. ‘What could the hapless Angela do? She decided to use her one skill, capitalize on her marital name, imitate her recently departed husband’s accent and present herself as Senorita Angelina, there being an unaccountable craving for Spanish maids amongst an alarming proportion of domestic employers.’

  ‘But she was the mad woman who came through the ceiling,’ Easterly realized at last.

  ‘She was not mad,’ Hesketh insisted fiercely.

  ‘She w
as certainly unusual,’ I remarked.

  ‘After a brief employment with Mrs Thum, the wife of an engineer, Angelina Innocenti found employment with Mrs Peters, a widow of number 32 Burton Crescent. It was while working there that she met a handsome young valet by the name of Austin Hesketh,’ Sidney Grice narrated.

  ‘How can you know that?’ I asked.

  ‘By looking through what you found too tedious with which to trouble yourself, Mrs Garstang’s household accounts. She slipped various pieces of paper into it – some of the larger receipts, a few recipes for her cook to try and a note on the back of Angelina Innocenti’s character reference that she was also vouched for by Hesketh.’ Mr G spread his hands. ‘You cannot vouch for someone who you do not know.’

  ‘She was a good maid,’ Hesketh said. ‘Mrs Garstang was always very happy with her and thanked me for my recommendation.’

  ‘To skip merrily backwards a few paces,’ Mr G walked his first two fingers in mid-air, ‘nearly a year after taking employment with Mrs Peters, and some months after meeting Austin Hesketh, Angelina Innocenti left, only to return six months later to the same household.’

  ‘Do you know why Angelina left number 32?’ I asked, and Hesketh rubbed his jaw.

  ‘To look after her sick mother, as I remember it.’

  ‘A mother who was so sick that she was still working for the Weavers and did so until the day she died some five years later.’ Grice’s fingers twirled a polka.

  ‘I can think of only one other reason young girls disappear temporarily,’ I said carefully, and Easterly scratched his armpit.

  ‘It was to have a child,’ Hesketh confessed. ‘My son, Danny. But I am sure Mr Grice has seen the birth certificate. I could not have him registered as a bastard and so I put both our names on it.’

  ‘But she was married to hanother man.’ Easterly edged away as if he thought adultery might be contagious.

  ‘Only in the strictest letter of the law,’ Hesketh assured him. ‘There was nothing we could do about that. But we took our marriage vows and exchanged rings in a quiet side chapel of St George’s, and I truly believe that we were man and wife in God’s eyes.’