The Last Pleasure Garden

by Lee Jackson

  Decimus Webb looks coolly at Cremorne’s proprietor. ‘I will judge that for myself, sir.’

  ‘Judge all you like, Inspector,’ says Boon, hands firmly in his waistcoat pockets. ‘The man’s positively deranged. I’ve always said so.’

  Webb walks briskly down the length of the Gallery, through the crowd, most of whom seem rather mystified by the spectacle of the black-robed clergyman. As he draws closer to the firework tower, Webb can make out that the book in the Reverend Featherstone’s hands is a Bible; and his words something of a sermon.

  ‘“Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven! And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground,”’ intones the clergyman.

  ‘Sling yer hook!’ shouts a baser member of the audience. ‘Here, maestro – start up the band, why don’t yer? I didn’t pay two bob for this.’

  Boon, meanwhile, catches up with Webb. ‘You must do something, Inspector.’

  [‘And is this not truly the New Sodom?’ proclaims Reverend Featherstone.]

  ‘You did not invite him to preach, I take it?’ says Webb.

  ‘The man is a lunatic,’ replies Boon. ‘Quite mad.’

  Webb sighs. ‘He has just lost his wife, sir. One must make allowances; I expect it has shattered his nerves.’

  [‘And are we not wretched sinners?’]

  Boon shakes his head. ‘You do not understand, Webb. Apart from this embarrassing interruption to my business, he is waving that lamp directly above the blessed fireworks. If he should set light to them all together, he will have his fire and brimstone, all right – in this life, not the next.’

  ‘Will he not come down? He has made his point.’

  Boon pushes his hands deeper into his waistcoat pockets. ‘If you care to go up there, you can ask him.’

  Webb hesitates for a moment. ‘How did he get up there in the first place?’

  ‘There is a ladder at the back,’ replies Boon.

  Webb looks up at the clergyman and reluctantly finds a path through the orchestra, most of whom are already on their feet, alternately indignant or amused by the unexpected prayer-meeting, oblivious to any danger. He finds that the rear of the tower belies the Moorish façade, a plain iron scaffold with a series of steep ladders ascending to a wooden terrace behind the crenellated summit. Two stagehands stand at the base, looking upwards.

  ‘Can we not go up and get him?’ asks Webb.

  One stagehand looks at his companion and laughs derisively. ‘We? If that lamp spills you’ll be blown sky high, guv’nor. I’d like to hold on to my ’stremities, if you don’t mind.’

  If Webb is inclined to remonstrate with the two men, he glances upwards and changes his mind. Instead, he tentatively sets foot on the first ladder, and begins to climb the scaffold.

  ‘Reverend? Can you hear me?’ shouts Webb. No reply, however, is forthcoming, except the sound of the clergyman’s voice, declaiming against the debaucheries of mankind.

  Webb reluctantly climbs up to one deck, then another, until he is no more than a half dozen feet below the trap-door that leads to the tower’s terrace. He can make out the brass loading-tubes that already contain a quintet of rockets, and the neatly laid-out store of shells, comets and squibs all waiting to be projected into the night air; and, although it may be his imagination, there seems to be a faint hint of gunpowder in the air.

  ‘Featherstone! Stop one moment, sir!’ shouts Webb.

  The clergyman does pause, looking down through the trap-door. ‘Inspector? Whatever are you doing there?’

  ‘Sir, I beg you, extinguish the lamp and come down.’

  ‘No, Inspector,’ replies Featherstone, his words fast and almost garbled. ‘These sinners must hear the Word, if we are to save them their fate. I have been too blinkered to see it. I must beard the lion in his den!’

  ‘Sir, extinguish the lamp. There is enough explosive here to blow us both to smithereens.’

  ‘Explosive?’ asks the clergyman, seemingly perplexed.

  ‘The fireworks!’ exclaims Webb. ‘Sir, please, think what you are about. This is not Exeter Hall.’

  ‘The path that leads to life is straight and narrow, Inspector. There is little time for these poor souls; most are already at the devil’s mercy. They must hear me.’

  ‘They will not hear you if you are blown to kingdom come, sir. Come, be reasonable.’

  Featherstone hesitates. ‘My wife, Inspector . . . I owe it to her . . .’

  ‘I understand, sir,’ replies Webb. ‘But she would not wish you to cause a tragedy here, would she?’

  Featherstone stops quite still, as if lost in thought; his posture seems to sag a little. ‘No, no. I suppose not, Inspector.’

  And, with that, he puts down his Bible, cups his hand above the lamp’s brass chimney, and blows out the flame. Webb, in turn, breathes a deep sigh of relief.

  It is only when the clergyman begins his descent down the ladder that Webb realises quite how tightly his own hands are clasped around the wood.

  Mr. John Boon stands by the King’s Road entrance to Cremorne, with Decimus Webb and the Reverend Featherstone, rather stooped and defeated, before him. The face of Cremorne’s proprietor is a particular shade of infuriated pink, which lends little charm to his countenance.

  ‘I cannot believe it, Inspector – you must charge this madman!’ exclaims Boon.

  ‘I think, sir,’ Webb replies, ‘that if one considers the Reverend’s personal circumstances; and that, in the end, no great harm was done, I am inclined to let the matter rest.’

  ‘Let it rest! Yes, well, that does not surprise me, coming from you, Inspector. Not at all!’

  ‘There is no need to be abusive, sir. The Reverend has given me his word that he will not return to your premises, or the immediate vicinity. That is enough for you, surely?’

  ‘I shall believe that when I see it,’ says Boon.

  ‘May I go, Inspector?’ interjects the Reverend Featherstone in a low whisper. ‘I should like to return home, if I may.’

  ‘Yes, sir. You take care.’

  Boon snorts contemptuously, but the two men watch as the clergyman walks out through the gates, and along the King’s Road, his shoulders still slumped and weary.

  ‘That is an end to your ridiculous feud, I hope,’ says Webb, at last. ‘Surely you can see the man has been quite broken.’

  ‘The man is a menace, sir,’ says Boon, emphatically. ‘And if this is how you are prosecuting your search for The Cutter, then God help us all.’

  ‘The Reverend Featherstone is quite harmless, Mr. Boon. He is the least of my worries.’

  The Reverend Featherstone returns to his rooms in St. Mark’s to find them dark and unwelcoming. No-one has lit the gas; there is no supper ready upon the dining table; his correspondence lies unopened upon the bureau. It takes him a little while to find the matches in the bureau drawer; and then there is the chore of going round the burners. At length, however, when the room has some light, he takes the day’s letters and sits down at his writing desk, not far from where he found the corpse of his wife.

  He reaches down to the bottom drawer of the desk, and pulls out a silver paper-knife, cutting open the folds of each envelope one by one. When he is done, he methodically returns the knife to the drawer, where it lies, inconspicuous and unseen, hidden from the world, beside a sharp pair of household scissors.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  It is gone three o’clock in the afternoon when Rose Perfitt hears her mother’s footsteps upon the stairs. Rose hastily places the book she is reading out of sight, stuffing it under the bed sheets, and resumes the languid pose of an invalid, lolling on the pillows propped up against the headboard. She answers her mother’s knock upon the door with a faint voice, calculated to sound as miserable as possible.

  ‘Rose, how are you feeling?’ asks Mrs. Perfitt, as she opens the door.

  ‘I
’m still a little low, Mama.’

  ‘Did Richards bring you that soup?’ continues her mother, who walks over to the bed, and lightly touches her daughter’s forehead with her hand. ‘You do not have a temperature, at least.’

  ‘I might try and get up later.’

  ‘I should hope so. You cannot stay in bed all day, my dear,’ says Mrs. Perfitt, straightening the sheets as she talks, ‘there is no virtue in that, even if you feel seedy. I promised your father that you would be up and about by the time he comes home.’

  ‘I was thinking about Mr. Sedgecombe. Has he called?’

  Mrs. Perfitt sighs. ‘You know full well he has not, Rose. You can hear the bell as well as anyone.’

  ‘I might have been asleep,’ protests Rose.

  ‘He has neither called nor left his card,’ replies Mrs. Perfitt, wearily.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mama.’

  Mrs. Perfitt manages a forced smile. ‘Never mind, my dear. There will be other young men.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘And he was an awful bore, wasn’t he?’ says Mrs. Perfitt, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. ‘I never knew there was so much to be said about cricket.’

  Rose laughs. ‘Mama!’

  ‘Well, never mind that. Now, I am going to visit your Aunt Elspeth again. She knows you are sickly, mind you. Why she cannot manage for herself, I do not know. I do believe she craves the attention. I do not suppose you would care to come and pay your respects?’

  ‘No, Mama. But do send her my love.’

  ‘I shall. I should be back before you father is home. And do not run Richards ragged, either, if you can help it. She has quite enough to do.’

  ‘I’m sure I will get up soon, Mama. In an hour or so.’

  Mrs. Perfitt accedes to this, and leaves her daughter alone, closing the bedroom door behind her.

  Rose, in turn, waits until she can hear her mother going downstairs. Then she gets up, pulling her dressing-gown around her, and tiptoes towards her bedroom window, peering out along the street.

  An hour later, and Rose Perfitt is up from her bed and dressed. Quite still, standing by her bedroom curtains, she suddenly catches sight of something upon Edith Grove that sends her dashing from the window. Without the slightest hesitation, she rushes down the hall stairs, her feet barely touching the carpet. She does not pause for breath until she descends the final flight, down into the basement kitchen, her soft slippers sliding on the stone floor. Outside in the narrow well of the area, the railed sunken court in front of the house, she can make out a pair of boots, coming down the whitewashed steps. She hurries to the kitchen door and carefully undoes the latch. Then, with a quick glance up to the street, she swiftly ushers George Nelson indoors.

  ‘I thought you’d never come,’ she says, her tone more one of relief than chastisement.

  ‘I should be working,’ replies Nelson, looking around the kitchen. ‘Told them I had a belly ache.’

  ‘Well, do hurry up and kiss me then.’

  George Nelson, a good foot taller than Rose, smiles at this, reaches out and cups her face in his hands. He leans down and kisses her, his lips lingering on hers for what seems to Rose an eternity. He grins as he pulls back, lightly touching her face with his rough hand.

  ‘Where are they, then?’

  ‘Papa is at work and Mama has gone to see Aunt Elspeth.’

  ‘And?’

  Rose sighs in mock vexation. ‘Cook will not come for an hour yet; and I sent Richards on an errand.’

  ‘She knows I’m here, though, don’t she? I bet she does.’

  ‘George, don’t be such a goose!’ she exclaims. ‘Of course she does. I gave her my best ring, remember? I told you. She won’t say a word.’

  Nelson frowns a little. Rose, however, ignores the little show of displeasure and takes his hand; she tugs at it, moving back towards the hall stairs.

  ‘Come on,’ she says, a mischievous look upon her face. ‘Come with me.’

  ‘Where?’ he replies, almost warily.

  ‘Come on. I’ll show you my room. Wipe your feet.’

  George Nelson seems to hold back at first. But, in the end, he wipes his feet upon the mat by the door and allows himself to be led, like some wary animal, out of the kitchen and up into the hall. He looks quite incongruous in his working clothes, dodging the china plate displayed upon shelves on the first-floor landing, his heavy boots thudding upon the stairs. But Rose pulls him onwards with almost childlike enthusiasm, until they come to her bedroom door.

  ‘Here we are then,’ she says, proudly, bringing him inside.

  Nelson surveys the room. ‘I can see that,’ he replies, casually casting his eye over the bed, the marble washstand, the lace curtains.

  ‘Here is my little desk, where I wrote you all those letters,’ says Rose, ‘the ones I told you about. You will have to read them.’

  ‘I will. Not now, eh?’

  ‘And that’s my bed,’ she says.

  ‘I can see that too. Is that where you dream about me, then?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘What sort of dreams?’

  Rose blushes. ‘Just dreams.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asks Nelson, looking in the direction of the armchair by the hearth, where a tumble of white silk lies draped over one arm.

  Rose follows his gaze; it takes her a moment to see what he might mean. ‘My night things. I had to stay in bed to put off Mama.’

  ‘You needn’t have dressed for me,’ he replies.

  She laughs, nervously.

  ‘Put them on again,’ he says, picking up the nightdress, the soft white material so fine that it flows between his fingers like water. ‘Put them on for me, Rosie. Let me see you.’

  Rose blushes once more. ‘I don’t like to,’ she replies, hesitantly. ‘We don’t have long. They’ll all be back soon.’

  ‘Go on,’ he says, sitting down in the armchair. ‘You will when we’re married; you’ll do it for me then. Why not now, eh?’

  ‘Married? Don’t tease,’ she says, her voice suddenly abrupt. ‘You know Papa will never—’

  ‘Hang your bloody father. We’ll find someone who’ll do it; I know a fellow who can write out the neatest Alfie-Davy you ever saw. We’ll have your Papa swearing a blinding oath to anything we like. You said you’d like to be my wife, Rosie.’

  Rose walks over to where George Nelson sits, clasping his hand and dropping to her knees. ‘Oh, I would. More than anything!’

  ‘Well then, just you think about that. Why don’t you go and close those curtains?’

  Rose gets up, and does as she is told, drawing the curtains shut, leaving the room in a darkened half-light. She pauses for a moment, then walks back towards the hearth. Turning her back to him, she undoes the line of brown buttons at the front of her day dress, until it hangs loose about her shoulders. She carefully peels the cotton free of her skin, letting it drop to the floor under its own weight, revealing her bare arms and the corset of burgundy satin, which tightly moulds her waist into the perfect shape. She looks back over her shoulder.

  ‘Undo me then,’ she says, in a whisper.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  ‘Evening, sir. I see you’re working late again. How are things with you?’

  Decimus Webb finds his sergeant waiting for him, standing by his desk, as he walks into his office.

  ‘Tolerable. The Assistant Commissioner would like to see me strung from a lamp-post at the earliest opportunity, but apart from that I am quite well.’

  ‘Gave you a dressing down, did he, sir? About The Cutter?’

  Webb pauses. ‘Sergeant, you have the annoying ebullience that characterises that rare occasion when you stumble upon some useful information. Can I suggest you impart it to me forthwith? Or must I play some wretched game of forfeits before you deign to honour me with whatever fascinating revelation awaits me?’

  ‘Here, sir,’ says Bartleby, pulling a crumpled newspaper from behind his back. ‘Police report in The T
imes, three years old. I had to bribe Sergeant Walker to let me take it out of the library. Have a look at that.’

  Webb creases his brow, and peers at the article to which Bartleby directs him.

  WOOLWICH. On Wednesday evening, a tall, respectable-looking man, about fifty-five years of age, dressed in a silk suit which placed him well above the middle rank of life, was brought up by a constable of the K Division, and placed at the bar before Mr. BUTCHER, on the charge of having in a most indecent and disgusting manner exposed his person to a young female in Greenwich Park, a short distance from the Royal Observatory.

  ‘I hope this is worth my trouble, Sergeant,’ says Webb.

  ‘Oh, it is, sir. You just read on.’

  The prisoner at the bar seemed highly conscious of the degrading situation in which he was placed, and objected to giving his name and address, as he also had done at the station-house. The requisite information was, however, elicited by an officer of the court who, on looking into the prisoner’s hat, discovered the lining bore the words – ‘The Rev. Augustus Featherstone, No. 14, Cherry Tree Lane, Bromley.’

  Webb looks at his sergeant, his eyebrows raised.

  ‘Puts an interesting complexion on things, doesn’t it, sir?’ says Bartleby.

  ‘How did you come by this?’ asks Webb.

  ‘One of the men at Bromley recalled the case, sir. Sent me a note this afternoon.’

  Webb nods and reads on.

  The prisoner, unattended by any legal adviser, had been brought up instanter by the constable and elected to represent himself.

  Mary Davies, residing at No. 35, Barking Lane, Ilford, was then examined and deposed as follows:- This afternoon, at about four o’clock, I was passing by the shrubbery near the Observatory in Greenwich Park. I saw the prisoner there and when he turned himself round, he exposed to me his person. I then walked briskly in another direction, and was again insulted by him in a similar manner.

  Mr. BUTCHER – Were you alone?

  Mrs. Davies – No, sir; I had two children with me. I went and gave information directly to a parkkeeper, who caused the man to be apprehended.