King Dido

by Alexander Baron

  Police called at every dwelling in Rabbit Marsh and Jaggs Place. Hundreds of people were questioned. There were no more sealed lips; not, that is, about the feud between Dido and Keogh. The police were swamped with statements. Reams of paper were closely studied at the station. But not a word could be found which would stand as evidence. Everyone was ready enough to talk. People talked out of malice, for beneath the servility accorded to a master there is always malice. They talked because the sheer atrocity of the crime had overcome their normal reluctance to help the police. They talked because a crime so lurid and melodramatic excited them, and because their own closeness to it made them feel self-important. They vied in their attempts to provide information which would secure them the glory of a mention in future newspaper reports. All that they offered, however, proved on careful sifting to be no more than rumour, hearsay, exaggeration.

  On the night of the crime no-one in either Rabbit Marsh or Jaggs Place had seen or heard anything. There was not even the bark of a dog to report. A few people in Jaggs Place claimed that before the shrieks they had heard the great whoof, as one of them put it, “Like a ’uge gas oven being lit,” and others spoke of the noise of breaking glass. The police were fairly sure that an inflammable missile had been hurled through the window; but they could not prove anything. Repeated and minute searches of the gutted room produced nothing but spats of melted glass clinging to charred timbers.

  As to Keogh’s earlier raid upon Dido, all that could be gleaned was the testimony of a few neighbours that on the previous night they had heard shouts from Number 34 in the small hours, and one man had seen a light in the kitchen. Even the rescued children had slept through the night and could not say whether Keogh had been away from his bed.

  Dido, as impassive as a lump of wood, blocked this line of attack with the simple statement about Shonny’s bad dream. He never elaborated and he never varied his wording. He was questioned day and night to the extreme of strain and sleeplessness. He only sat patiently and in a quiet voice gave the same brief answers in the same precise words.

  He had an answer for everything. He was asked why the floorboards in the shop were scorched.

  “I was in there night before. Turned over an oil lamp.”

  What was he doing in there?

  “Lookin’ for a bit o’ cardboard to block the window I’d broke.”

  (This before they could confront him with the broken window.) Why did he use an oil lamp when there was gaslight in the shop?

  “Not near the floor there isn’t. You try lookin’ for a bit o’ cardboard under all them piles by that gas-light.”

  They came back to the window. How did he break it?

  “How?” Dido said, as if bored by silly questions. “I was ’alf asleep. Middle o’ the night. The table’s by the window. You saw. I swung round not thinkin’ with that big enamel teapot an’ I broke a pane in the window.”

  Why did he repair it so early the next morning?

  “Because,” Dido said with the patience of one explaining the alphabet to small children, “my missus wanted to come downstairs. On the sofa. I couldn’t let a draught blow in.”

  They produced remnants of burned clothes raked out of the boiler.

  “That’s right. We burn rags all the year round in that boiler. Rags an’ carpenters’ chips. We pay a lad ’alf a crown a week to stoke it. You ask ’im.”

  They confronted him with statements about the bad blood between himself and Keogh.

  “Bad blood between ’im an’ a lot o’ people, far as I know.”

  “You challenged Keogh to a fight. We have witnesses who heard Tommy Long deliver your challenge.”

  “That’s right. To a fair fight. He never took it up.”

  “You burned him out because he tried to burn you out the night before.”

  “That’s what you say.”

  “Save yourself trouble, Peach. We know.”

  “Then I reckon you’ll charge me, won’t you?” But they could not charge him. There was a stone wall at the end of every path. Among Merry and his superiors a mood of bitter anger grew hour by hour. It was not only the man’s impassive stolidity which mocked them more than any show of defiance; it was not only their sense of frustration and of their authority flouted. Children had died; it was one of those few crimes which arouse the loathing and fury of policemen. A dozen times a day Merry asked the same question, and he knew that his superiors were asking it, too. It was becoming his last hope. “Has Keogh talked yet?”

  “You’ll have to do better than this,” the Chief said, pushing aside a report of Merry’s. “We can’t hold him much longer without a charge.”

  “The man’s committed murder.”

  “He may have. But he hasn’t been charged. And if he knows his rights he can leave or stop answering or call a solicitor any time he likes.”

  “And you’d let him? Why don’t you let me get down there for an hour with him?”

  “Listen,” the Chief said. “You ought to know better. You’d be wasting sweat. You could thump that man ’till Kingdom Come and he wouldn’t feel it. Merry, this case is too big for rough handling. If you’ve got a drunk in the cells or a petty larceny you can laugh in his face if he asks for a lawyer, you can let the lads go down and give him a leathering he won’t forget. But not when you want to put him in the dock at the Bailey. Not when the newspapers are on the doorstep. Not when you’ve got the D.P.P. sending down swell civvies in cabs from Whitehall every day. This man is protected by the enormity of what he’s done. You’re a smart man, Merry, but if you’re not too smart to learn, mark this. When you’ve got a big one you have to wear kid gloves. You give us another charge — a holding charge — anything — or we’ll have to let him go.”

  “He horsewhipped Keogh in the street last May. There’s witnesses’ statements in front of you. Hold him for that.”

  “I will if Keogh comes round and testifies. But if he comes round, we won’t need a holding charge, will we? It was five months ago, Bill. An affray. Hardly anyone in the street. You haven’t got a single reliable witness here.” He put his hand on the papers. “This one glimpsed him. That one saw the cart go round the corner. Others are hearsay. Damn it, a holding charge is no use if you can’t hold a man.”

  “Thank you for telling me.”

  “Keep your shirt on, Bill. What about Keogh’s mates? They’re the only real witnesses. They felt the whip.”

  “They’re the ones that won’t talk. They were guilty of a much worse affray the week before. They won’t put themselves in the manure.”

  “All right, Bill. No evidence from the principals. None from the police. We couldn’t do it. I’ll tell you what will hold him, though. Money with menaces.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “He’s been taking money off these shopkeepers for how long —?”

  “Sixteen months.”

  “And you’re still working on it.”

  Merry said, “I understand others have tried.”

  He spoke with no more than a touch of asperity but he was stirred deeply by anger, not only against Dido but against all the higher-ups who were trampling over his patch. He regarded those streets as his own province. Now Superintendents and Chief Inspectors were going down there and even talking to people, presumably to show a mere underling how the job should be done. Well, so far they had gone in vain. He knew that the Chief was getting at him. If the Chief ever had to make a remark on Merry’s work or send in a report on him he would never use any but the highest commendation; yet, though there was no overt dislike, the Chief was an old stager, a rough old East End bobby at heart, and although a considerable freedom was permitted in the matter of plain clothes he must secretly consider that Merry as a supernumerary, an inspector on sufferance as it were, was coming the gent a bit too much in his rakish trilby and smart overcoat. So that it touched raw flesh when the Chief said, “I thought you were the guv’nor down there.”

  “Did you?”

  �
�You get back there. Money with menaces is what we want. Give us one statement from one tradesman and we’ll hold him on it.”

  Merry said to Blakers, “There’s half a dozen at least been giving money to Peach. I know why they won’t talk.”

  “Ah,” Blakers said. His son Stanley was in the kitchen, with the door open. “What you’re after is a ’oldin’ charge. I sympathise, Mr Merry.”

  “Do you want him to come out again? You’re not paying money to anyone now.”

  “Payin’ money?” Blakers echoed.

  “Come off it. If he swings you’re done with him. There’s no gang behind him. Only a kid brother of fifteen. Is that who you’re frightened of?”

  “Me frightened, Mr Merry? Why should I be frightened?”

  “It’s very funny, everyone’s falling over themselves to talk. Only they’ve got nothing to tell us. But you and your mates have. And you keep mum. I wonder why.”

  “Why would you say, Mr Merry?”

  “Could it be anything to do with stolen goods?”

  “Stolen goods down ’ere? All honest tradesmen we are, Mr Merry.”

  “When do you think I was born, Blakers? There isn’t a shop or a stall that doesn’t rely on stolen goods for a living. And who’s got the contacts down here? Who’s the one that can tell ’em all where they can pick up a cheap lot? You’ve put the gag on ’em, Blakers. You’re the boss and they’re keeping their mouths shut on your sayso. Why?”

  “You’re bein’ very unfair, Mr Merry. I’m just an’ ol’ chap that minds ’is own business.”

  “Listen,” Merry said. “Don’t think you can play me up. I can put one on you for receiving.”

  “Stanley,” Blakers called. “Do you think that’s right? Did you ’ear what the gentleman said? I’m sure my conscience is clear. ’Ave you any proof, Mr Merry?”

  “I won’t forget this,” Merry said, and went out.

  What enraged Merry even more behind the steady gaze with which he faced the world was the fact that he had not been able to get anything out of the family; neither he, nor his superiors, in many interrogations. A lad, an old woman and a sick girl; and he could not get the better of them.

  Shonny sat every time like a limp, scared child. Provided by Dido with the simplest of stories he stuck to it. Repetitions, catch questions, shock questions, threats even, could produce nothing but the same answers in the same monotone, or scared silences, or a mumbled, “I don’t know.”

  Mrs Peach’s strength was the fact that she knew nothing of Dido’s raid on Keogh and firmly believed that he had been in his bed all that night. And she knew so little of what had happened on the previous night that by a trick of the will she had forgotten all but Dido’s story about the bad dream, which she believed as firmly. Yet it was not in her persistence that her strength lay. The detectives could never catch her out because she had retreated for protection into her old private world of absentmindedness. Her answers were whimpering and pointless, she drifted into irrelevances that drove her questioners to distraction, she broke off into long, helpless silences, directing her frightened gaze everywhere but at her interlocutors. She seemed to just sit there and daydream; and all the ears that strained to catch her private mumbling learned nothing of value.

  Grace, too, had found a refuge. She had taken to her bed and insisted that she was too unwell to move. After a few questions her eyes went bright with fever and her cheeks burned, and the doctor warned that she must not be bullied. Merry had to sit by her bed and hear the same dull answers to his questions; and after a little while she would sigh and close her eyes and pull the sheets up to her chin; and he would leave, defeated. After he had visited her on the third day of Dido’s detention he went back to the station and all he could find to say to the Chief was, “Anything about Keogh yet?”

  “Yes. He died this morning. Never regained consciousness.”

  “All right, dad,” Stanley Blakers said. “He’s snuffed it. Keogh has pegged out. He died this morning.”

  His father let him continue with an interrogative, “Ah?”

  “I don’t know what you’re waiting for,” Stanley said. “They can’t keep Dido there without a holding charge. Do you want him to be let out? — Well you’re not sorry for him, are you?”

  “It’s ’ard enough lookin’ arter Number One in this world,” his father said. “Every man for ’isself.”

  “All right then,” Stanley said. “I dunno why you wouldn’t help Mr Merry when he was here but it’s in your interest to help him now.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because,” Stanley said, trying to be patient, “you won’t be bothered with anyone then. No Keogh, no Dido.”

  “No others?”

  “What others?”

  “There’s always others, son. Now you listen to me. You may be educated and you may ’ave a job with the council, but your ol’ dad can still teach you a thing or two. Why should I ’elp Merry?”

  “You want to keep in with him, don’t you? He’s the only one you’ve got to fear now.”

  “Son,” Blakers’ voice was pitying, “you’re a young man an’ you ’aven’ got long sight. That’s your trouble. Dido is laughin’ at ’em over the murder charge. Right?”

  “Now that Keogh’s dead, yes. But they can get him for money with menaces.”

  “For which if you don’t know the top price is five years. Not that ’e’d get anythin’ like that for takin’ a few mingy sov’reigns off a few traders. Why, ’e never threatened anyone but me, an’ that was only once.”

  “You can say different.”

  “Can I? Thank you. Year or two in the nick, less I dare say, Dido comes ’ome. D’yer wonder they was all afraid to shop him to Merry? ’E’s a good conduct man if there ever was one. Not very long is it? Long enough for ’im to sit there chewin’ ’is grudge, though. An’ what ’appens to me then?”

  “Merry’ll look after you.”

  “Be your age, lad. Merry don’t care a fiddler’s fuck for me. ’E’d split ’is guts laughin’ if I got done. Why, ’e’d pray for it so as ’e could git Dido inside again. Fat lot of good it would be to me. Let Merry fry ’is own fish. What you can’t see yet, son, is, where the profit is.”

  “What profit?”

  “For your ol’ dad, Stanley. That’s ’oo. Look. Let Dido come ’ome. It suits me. You shut your gob for a change and pay attention. First — I can put ’im inside for money with menaces. I’m the only one ’e threatened an’ I’ve got witnesses. I tell him that. Right? No, no, you listen. I know an’ you know that it wouldn’ pay me to do it. But Dido Peach is dead scared of the nick. I know my Dido. Once they’ve let ’im go ’e’ll cut ’is throat sooner than go back in the nick. Because all ’e wants is to be respectable. You can laugh. Respectable. And that’s why I can put the ’alf-nelson on ’im. All right, let ’im keep the roughs out. There’s plenty waitin’ to move in if there ain’t someone like Dido to keep ’em off. Let ’im take ’is ’alf-sov’reigns off the other shops. Long as I get my whack. An’ what’s more, if I want a crate o’ nicked fags ’e won’ be so ’igh an’ mighty any more. ’E won’ turn up ’is nose at collecting my debts neither. Long as Dido knows I can put the screws on ’im, ’e’ll do as I say. Your dad’s king o’ the castle. ’Bout time there was a respectable tradesman in charge of things, ’stead of all these roughs. I tell you, Stanley, with my brains I ought to be on the Borough Council I ought.”

  The side door at Number 34 was open. Merry walked in without knocking and went straight past the scared old woman who bobbed out of the kitchen at the sound of his steps. He went upstairs. He walked into Grace’s bedroom without knocking. He didn’t care if he caught her naked.

  She was in bed. He came to the bedside. “All right. You’re going to talk now.”

  She said, “You’ll wake baby.”

  “I’ve come to tell you something, my lady. It’s about your baby. You’re going to lose your baby. Did you know that?”

 
She didn’t lie down and start her exhausted act. She gazed up at him in apprehension. He said, “You didn’t know that, did you? You cross me any more, I can have your baby taken away.”

  It was not true. He was going beyond his powers. He was ready to go farther. The Chief had told him that unless they turned up some evidence they’d have to let Dido go. The man had been kept for four days without a charge. The Yard was scared stiff and they said the Home Office was, too. Merry had persuaded the Chief to hold Dido for a few more hours; two hours, that was all; and he had come here. He was a cautious man and not one to risk his career but it would be his word against hers afterwards. There were no witnesses inside these four walls. Complaints against the police were ten a penny; the police officer’s word was always taken. This was his last chance. He said, “And you’ll go to prison. D’you know that? He’s going on trial. Don’t worry, we’ve got evidence. He’ll swing. You’re not doing him any good. But you’ll go to prison for telling me lies. Well? Now tell me. What happened that night?”

  She lay there moistening her lips. He said, “I’ll ruin you. I swear on the Book. You’ll go to prison and your baby’ll go to a home with bastards. Do you want that? Do you want your kid to grow up a murderer’s git and a mother in prison?”

  She lay quite still, her hair on the pillow, her eyes on him. He changed his tone. “You don’t want that. I can tell a decent girl. You couldn’t help getting mixed up with him. It’s no use being loyal any more. Be loyal to your child.” He walked round the foot of the bed and looked down into the cradle. “Lovely. Little doll, she is. I’ve got two. Best time when they’re babies. Never the same after.” He returned to the other side of the bed, drew up a chair, sat down and leaned forward. He put his hand on hers. She did not take her hand away. “Grace. I know a decent girl when I see one. I want to help you. For heaven’s sake, we’re not monsters. Helping decent people is what we’re for. I often wondered why you married him. I expect he told you a tale.”