Rose Campion and the Stolen Secret

by Lyn Gardner

“My purse, my hankie! Call the rozzers!” cried Lizzie, her voice rising in hysteria.

  “It must have been her,” said the girls behind, pointing at Effie. “The muck snipe has mizzled that lady’s purse and wipe. She deserves the noose.”

  One of them giggled as if she was looking forward to the spectacle of Effie being hanged by the neck until she was dead. Nobody in the gallery was watching the stage now; all eyes were fixed on Effie and Lizzie, and there was an ugly mood in the air.

  A worried-looking Thomas Campion appeared at the gallery door, eager to calm the situation and protect his music hall’s good name. He didn’t want the police involved if it could be avoided.

  “Make her turn out her pockets!” yelled Lizzie, glowering over Effie like a wild bear.

  “Please,” whispered Effie, who felt as if her stomach had gone into free fall. “I didn’t steal nothing. Cross me heart.” She half rose to her feet but as she stood, a handkerchief slithered to the floor. Effie’s face was a picture of confusion. Rose snatched the handkerchief up and examined it. She narrowed her eyes at the Tanner Street girls.

  “There! Proof!” cried Lizzie triumphantly, without even glancing at the handkerchief.

  “I … I … I didn’t…” stuttered Effie.

  “I think you did, my girl,” said the girl holding the baby, and she stood up with a swagger.

  “Come on, Elsie, Rubes. We ain’t going to hang about in a den of tea leaves and cutpurses. It don’t become us.” The girls swanned towards the door like affronted duchesses. Rose went to open her mouth, but Thomas frowned at her and shook his head. Then he clapped his hands to get the entertainment back underway and the orchestra struck up once more.

  He herded Lizzie, Effie and Rose out of the gallery and on to the stairs. Effie was shaking uncontrollably.

  “Keep an eye on that one,” said Lizzie, “or she’ll make a bolt for it, the nasty little dipper. She’s a thief; the handkerchief proves it.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” said Rose firmly. She was holding the hankie behind her back.

  Thomas looked at her quizzically. “What do you mean, Rosie? Spit it out.”

  “Is this your handkerchief?” Rose asked Lizzie, holding up the handkerchief with a flourish like a magician.

  “Of course it’s mine!” snapped Lizzie furiously without even deigning to glance at it.

  “Oh,” said Rose, “and I always had you down as a proper lady.”

  Lizzie bristled. “I am a lady, born and bred; fallen on hard times,” she said indignantly.

  Rose saw Thomas’s mouth twitch.

  “Of course,” said Rose sympathetically. Then she added, “And as a lady you’d only ever carry a silk hankie…”

  Lizzie nodded vigorously. “Of course!”

  “So,” said Rose, waving the handkerchief in front of Lizzie, “you’d never use a poor grimy thing like this.”

  Lizzie took out her lorgnette and peered more closely at the grimy hankie. She saw the poor-quality material and the ungainly stitching.

  “That’s not my handkerchief. I wouldn’t touch such a nasty thing,” she said, drawing herself up to her full height.

  “I thought so,” said Rose. She turned to Effie. “I hate to ask this, but would you mind turning out your pockets, Effie?”

  Effie did as she was told. They were empty.

  “See?” said Rose. “There’s no purse and no silk handkerchief. If this grimy bit of cloth is the only evidence you have of Effie’s guilt, then surely we must agree she is entirely innocent of the crime of which you have accused her?”

  “Oh, Rosie,” said Thomas admiringly. “You’re better than a lawyer. Maybe you learned something at that posh school after all.” He turned to Lizzie. “Mrs Gawkin?”

  Lizzie’s face was a mix of the sheepish and the belligerent.

  “I still wouldn’t trust that guttersnipe,” she said, pointing her finger at Effie. She drew herself up. “Besides, I’ve still suffered a great loss, Mr Campion,” she said slyly.

  Thomas put an arm around her and guided her down the stairs.

  “I’m sure that we can make good your loss, Mrs Gawkin. Will you join me in a glass of brandy and we’ll settle it amicably?”

  “That’s kind of you, Mr Campion,” simpered Lizzie. “I will take a small brandy. Only for the shock, of course.”

  Rose watched them to the bottom of the stairs. Then she turned back to Effie, and in Lizzie’s voice she said, “Will you join me in a pie? Only for the shock, of course.”

  Effie giggled, but her hands were still shaking. “How did you work it out?” she asked shyly.

  “Simple. It was the baby,” said Rose. “I always try and keep an eye on the Tanner Street lot when they’re in. They’re trouble, but we can’t ban them. They’d put a match to the place. I noticed the babe had a ’kerchief round her neck one minute, and then she didn’t. The girls made the baby cry to create a disturbance, the boys prigged the purse and Lizzie’s silk handkerchief, and slipped away. Then the girls stayed to create a diversion and peach you up if needed so their brothers would have plenty of time to get away without being fingered.”

  She took Effie’s hand. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get those pies.”

  Two days later Effie stood outside Thomas Campion’s office with her ear pressed to the door. Her future was at stake.

  “Lizzie Gawkin won’t have it, Rosie,” said Thomas.

  “Well, I won’t have it any other way,” replied Rose hotly. “Effie’s staying at Campion’s. She’s got nowhere else to go, and we can use her. She’s a good little grafter. Good with her fingers. Helpful too. She’s been painting that bicycle I bought off the mudlarks and mended. Doing it beautifully too.”

  “We know nothing about Effie. For all we know, she really is a pickpocket. However much you’d like to, Rose, you can’t rescue all of London’s urchins,” said Thomas.

  Rose raised her eyebrows in mock horror. “Thomas! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. So what do you suggest? Sling her back out on the streets like an unwanted kitten? Why don’t we just have done with it and drown her in the water barrel?”

  “I don’t want to put her out,” said Thomas, “and in normal circumstances I wouldn’t dream of it, but Lizzie Gawkin is insistent that she won’t stay another day if Effie is here. She’s still convinced that she’s a pickpocket, despite the evidence to the contrary. You humiliated her, Rose. She’s a proud woman and now she’s making up for her loss of face.”

  “She’s a horrible bully,” said Rose. “She bullies Aurora, and now you’re letting her bully you. I bet she got you to give her a sovereign in compensation when she probably only had a sixpence in her purse. I’d stake a month of fish suppers that woman’s a hundred times more dishonest than Effie.”

  “Rose, just at the moment I need her and Aurora. You can’t deny it; the Infant Phenomenon is good for business.”

  “Maybe she is and maybe she isn’t,” said Rose darkly. “She’s losing her confidence. You heard the crowd last night – more catcalls. Takings were down too. If the crowd get wind she’s getting nervous, they’ll start baiting her, and then she really will be in trouble.”

  Thomas nodded. He knew what Rose was saying was true. Aurora needed to change her act. Maybe he should have a word with Lizzie. He went to speak, but there were suddenly loud voices outside, exclamations of surprise and shock, and then the door burst open. Effie stumbled into the room followed by Grace Dorset and Freddie. Both were weeping. Grace’s face was a pale blotch, and the shadows under her eyes were like bruises.

  “Oh, Thomas,” she cried. “It’s Ned. He’s dead. He’s dead.” She burst into noisy sobs, and Freddie set up such a wail that Rose scooped him into her arms.

  “Dead?” said Thomas, putting an arm around Grace. “How? When?”

  “I’ve just come from the morgue. I’ve seen him. Somebody cracked his skull open and threw my poor love in the river. I saw the wound on the back of his head with my own eyes.
I kissed the butterfly birthmark on the nape of his neck.”

  Rose, who was still holding Freddie, flung her spare arm around Grace’s heaving shoulders.

  “My poor Ned has been lying all alone in the cold morgue for ten whole days,” sobbed Grace. “If I hadn’t found him he would have been given a pauper’s funeral in an unmarked grave. I’d never have known what had happened to him.”

  “I’m so sorry, Gracie,” said Thomas, taking the weeping woman into his arms. “Ten days is a long time to go without knowing where he was.”

  Rose had been thinking of the last time she saw Ned, in the Campion’s gallery. She gasped.

  “But I saw Ned ten days ago. It was the same day Aurora and Lizzie Gawkin turned up!”

  “What time was this, Rose?” asked Grace.

  “It was in the early evening. O’Leary and I were doing the King John scene.”

  “Then you must be mistaken,” whispered Grace sorrowfully. “Ned was pulled out of the river around noon. Within hours of saying goodbye to me and Freddie, he was murdered.”

  The room was choked with a dense silence.

  “Then we won’t rest until we’ve found out who was responsible and why,” said Rose.

  Thomas Campion nodded grimly in agreement.

  “I did see him, I’m sure I did. Or else I’m going mad and should be put in an asylum,” said Rose tearfully. “I didn’t imagine it, honest. Ned was in the gallery. I know he was.”

  “Did you tell the rozzers?” asked Effie.

  Rose nodded scornfully.

  “Thomas and I went to see them yesterday, but I don’t know why we bothered for all the notice they took. They’ve decided that Ned was so upset about not being able to get work that he flung himself into the river, hit his head and drowned.” She added bitterly, “Case closed.”

  Rose viciously spun the pedal on the bicycle that Effie was holding.

  “They were almost as bad as Lizzie Gawkin,” she said angrily.

  The news of Ned Dorset’s death had upset everyone at Campion’s. He’d been a great favourite among the ballet girls, and all the acts who’d known him were devastated. Apart from Lizzie Gawkin. She had complained loudly that all the weeping and wailing was giving her a headache. When Rose heard this, she shouted at the astonished Lizzie, telling her that she was a vulture and that Ned had been part of the Campion’s family, which was more than Lizzie would ever be.

  Lizzie had shrugged and given a vile little laugh. “Who wants to be part of this ‘family’?” she cried. “I’m not going to weep for Ned Dorset; I never even met the man. I have no interest in him. He’s nothing to me.” She’d stood up and beckoned to Aurora. “Come, my treasure, we’re going to the Four Cripples. My nerves are shredded.”

  As Lizzie pushed Aurora towards the door, Rose saw the tears in the girl’s eyes as she mouthed, “I’m so sorry.”

  Rose turned the pedal again on the bicycle. If she could find a way to work it into an act it would be a real novelty. Maybe it would attract a crowd. So far her sheep idea had failed to come to anything; she’d stood on London Bridge for two whole days and had been unable to persuade a single farmer to lend her his sheep.

  “What was Ned doing when you saw him?” asked Effie, flicking a speck off the bike frame, which she had painted bright green with yellow daisies. It looked like the most cheerful thing in the whole of London.

  Rose told her about Ned miming holding a baby and pointing at her. “I’m sure he was trying to tell me something.”

  “Maybe you saw Ned’s ghost?” said Effie. “Maybe the ghost couldn’t rest until he had told you something very important.”

  Rose was about to laugh when she stopped. She’d never been one for believing in ghosts, but now Effie had mentioned it she wondered if it could be true. It made her all the more certain that Ned had been murdered, and his ghost had returned to tell her something important. “Let’s think about what we know so far.” She ticked the information off on her fingers. “Grace told us that Ned left that morning saying he was coming to see Thomas, and that then he might have to go north. She also told us that he’d been north before on some kind of mysterious family mission. And that morning Ned got a letter from America, the second one he’d had.”

  “What happened to the letter?”

  “Grace said he took it with him, and the police found something sodden and unreadable in his pocket when they pulled him out of the river.”

  “So he can’t have been killed for the letter then,” said Effie. “The murderer would’ve taken it, else.”

  Rose nodded and blinked back angry tears. Who could have wanted to kill Ned Dorset?

  Sighing, she tightened another nut on the bicycle and turned to Effie. “Do you want to give it a turn around the yard?” she asked.

  Effie shook her head shyly. “I don’t know how,” she said.

  “It’s easy,” said Rose, and she hoiked up her skirts and started pedalling round the yard like a mad thing. She came to a sudden stop next to Effie. “Here, jump on the crossbar!”

  With peals of laughter, Effie managed to clamber on and they wobbled off, shrieking and giggling.

  Rose saw Aurora watching them wistfully. “Fancy a go?” she asked, trying and failing to make a dignified stop.

  Aurora blushed pink with pleasure. “I’d love—”

  But Lizzie suddenly appeared at her arm and pulled her away. “Come, my treasure,” she said loudly. “I don’t want you mixing with nasty common girls.”

  Rose snorted with laughter and yelled loudly, “Right, Effie! Let’s see just how fast us nasty common girls can go.”

  Effie giggled, and then yelled, “Watch out!”

  The butcher’s boy had wandered into the yard and was so mesmerised by the sight of Rose’s knickerbockers that he stood frozen to the spot. There was a loud crash, and Rose, Effie and the butcher’s boy collapsed in a heap on the ground with the bicycle on top of them.

  “Is anyone hurt?” asked Rose cheerfully.

  “No,” chorused Effie and the butcher’s boy.

  “You’re as mad as a hatter, Rose Campion,” said the butcher’s boy. But there was more than a touch of admiration in his voice.

  They were all still laughing when Grace appeared at the stage door. Everyone scrambled to their feet at the sight of her wan face.

  “Sorry, Grace,” said Rose, feeling they were being insensitive. “We were making far too much noise.”

  Grace shook her head. “The world doesn’t stop because my Ned is dead. I like to hear your laughter. Are you and Lottie still planning to take Freddie to see the mudlarks later?”

  Grace and Freddie had been staying at Campion’s for a few days now, and Lottie and the other ballet girls had made a pet of him. Rose had once walked into the dressing room to find them teaching him the cancan.

  “Of course, Grace,” said Rose. Grace smiled and went back inside.

  “Poor Grace,” said Effie. “She doesn’t deserve this. My mum always said Grace, Ned and Freddie were the nicest people in the street. She thought Ned Dorset was a real gent.”

  Rose looked up from where she’d been tinkering with the bike, surprised. “I didn’t know you knew Grace? And I didn’t think you had any family.”

  Effie flushed. “I don’t,” she said hesitantly. “She died. I don’t like to talk about it.”

  “I’m sorry. Must have been very recent,” said Rose softly.

  Effie looked away. Rose sensed something evasive in her manner. But Campion’s was full of people with secrets, people who wanted to reinvent themselves, or who had run away, or who didn’t even know their own history. Like her. Rose knew it was best not to ask too many questions, and wait for people to reveal themselves if and when they chose to do so.

  “Sorry, Effie,” she said good-naturedly. “I didn’t mean to pry. I’d better get back to work.”

  Effie watched as Rose wheeled the bicycle towards the stage door and into the theatre for safe keeping. She felt so guilty fo
r saying her mum was dead when she wasn’t. But she couldn’t tell about her mum being in Holloway. She couldn’t bear the thought of being turned away from Campion’s.

  A terrible thought occurred to her. What if by telling a lie about her mum, she was making something terrible come true? Maybe her mum would die suddenly. A tear spilled from her eye.

  “I’m sorry, Mum. Forgive me. I didn’t mean it. Please, please don’t die,” she whispered.

  Lizzie Gawkin made her way through the swirling fog, stepping as delicately as she could to avoid the piles of dung being collected by armies of children swarming across the cobbles. They were going to dry the dung and take it to the tanning factories in Bermondsey.

  Lizzie was wrapped up in a cloak, with a hat decorated with a tiny stuffed bird perched on her head. But she had the look less of a woman trying to defend herself from the icy wind and the smuts from the factory chimneys, and more like one eager to avoid recognition. Every now and again she stopped and looked furtively behind her to check she wasn’t being followed, but it was hard to tell in a street so clotted with fog that people suddenly appeared and disappeared like apparitions.

  She kept to the very edge of the street, hard up against the tipsy houses, moving stealthily like a scuttling rat. Occasionally a gap in the fog would open up and Lizzie’s jowly features would be revealed in a sudden beam of thin sunlight. Once she narrowly avoided having the contents of a chamber pot land on her head from a window above.

  Crossing London Bridge, she scurried on westwards where the narrow streets grew broader and the houses grander. She stopped in a square in Soho and consulted a piece of paper that she took from her pocket. Number twenty-four was over in one corner, a tall, narrow building whose upper floors lurched towards its neighbours as if seeking help to remain upright.

  Lizzie had been excited when she had received the curt reply, acknowledging the letter she had sent on her arrival in Southwark. She had been impatient at the silence that then followed, and she had wondered if the bait hadn’t been taken. Yesterday another letter had come, this time asking her to come to the offices of Snetherbridge and Skimpole in Soho Square.

  The address had disappointed her. She’d expected the lawyers for Lord Henry Easingford to have offices in a more salubrious part of London. She glanced around nervously once more. Maybe it was a trap? She looked from side to side but could see nobody and nothing suspicious. Some children ran squealing across the square chasing pigeons. A flower seller was flirting with an organ grinder. A man in a bowler hat was sitting on a bench in the square, reading a newspaper that obscured his face. She took a deep breath and walked up the steps of number twenty-four. A brass plaque on the wall reassured her she was in the right place. She pulled the bell, and the damp swollen door was eventually pulled open by a pimply youth who was stooped like a sapling buffeted by the wind.