Season of Darkness

by Cora Harrison

  That was him now. What would he say? She waited until his key turned the door lock and he had one foot in the door.

  ‘The police are down in the basement, now, Mrs Dawson,’ she said, calling words up the stairs as clearly and as loudly as she dared. And then she pretended to notice him. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Cartwright.’ She even dropped him a curtsy as he came up from the hallway; pounding his weight down on each step and gripping the banisters, white-knuckled, like a man who is just about holding on to his temper. Nasty-looking fellow, she thought, watching him as he passed her with a glare. Heavy face, side whiskers, round eyes, bottom teeth sticking out nearly covering his top lip. Made him look like a snarling dog, Isabella used to say. That scar of his. Looked like another mouth, stretching from cheek bone to chin. Eyes glittering and darting from side to side. Wide-legged stride. Chin lowered on chest. He had a very high colour, too. Didn’t suit him. Wasn’t healthy. More purple than red. He’d be even more purple-faced soon, she reckoned. Her quick ear had caught the sound of footsteps on the basement stairs.

  They reached the hall as soon as she did. The three of them. The inspector looking pompous and knowing. Mr Collins looking a bit sheepish. Half wishing that he could keep out of it, poor fellow, but sorry about Isabella. Mr Dickens, though; well, he was just calm and determined. She had to give him credit. As keen to revenge Isabella’s horrible death as she was, that’s what the two of them were. Spending time looking for clues, talking to the people in the house. And she’d be willing to bet that Inspector Field would not have been bothered about the death of a servant girl if Mr Dickens hadn’t chivvied him along. Very powerful man, Mr Dickens. She’d overheard Mrs Morson at Urania Cottage say that once. Well, let him use that power now. Get vengeance for poor Isabella and do a good turn to little Sesina while he was at it.

  ‘Was that Mr Cartwright who came home just now, Sesina?’ he asked now.

  ‘That’s right, sir,’ she said obligingly. ‘Do you wish to see him?’ She turned as if to go and summon the schoolteacher, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm.

  ‘You go back downstairs and have a rest, Sesina,’ he said in a surprisingly kind tone of voice. ‘We’ll announce ourselves.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said. She stood in the hall and watched them climb the first flight of stairs. They turned the corner and did not slacken pace. Three sets of footsteps climbing steadily. On the first-floor landing, now. Then the two next flights.

  And then a sharp knock, a heavy knock, sounded right through the house. The inspector’s husky voice. ‘Mr Cartwright. We’d like a little word with you, if you please. Inspector Field from Scotland Yard.’

  She wished that she could see his face. Well, he’d have to let a police inspector into his room and, of course, once the door was opened, the other two would pop in.

  Bit of a cheek, really, Mr Dickens and his friend butting in on police business. He’d make up something, though. She knew him. Always sure that he was right. Always had a smart explanation for everything. Look at the way he was in Urania Cottage! It was that rich lady, Miss Coutts, who was really in charge. Miss Coutts who paid all the bills. Everyone knew that. Mr Dickens, himself, always spoke of Miss Coutts as being the one that they all had to be so grateful to. But he was the one who was in and out of the place two or three times a week, he was the one with the power, the one that everyone was a bit afraid of, the one that some of those girls would do anything to get a word of praise out of. She smiled a little to herself as she waited in the hallway. She could just imagine him explaining to Mr Cartwright all about how fond he was of Isabella Gordon, how he felt responsible for her, how he brought along Inspector Field to try to find any clue as to her death, how they knew that everyone in the household would do their best to catch the murderer.

  But then the doorknocker sounded again, a smart rat-tat-tat. A tall figure. The landlord. Must have misplaced his key. Now Mrs Dawson could have no more peace. Surprising that she wasn’t out already with all the voices in the hall. Asleep, drunk, most like. Well, she might as well do her a good turn. Ignoring the front-door knocker, she went quietly to the parlour door and knocked smartly on it. No answer. Sesina opened it and went in. Mrs Dawson was so fast asleep that she had to put a hand on her to wake her up. Impatiently she shook the fat shoulder.

  Mrs Dawson woke with a start, just as the hall doorknocker sounded even more loudly. The landlord was getting impatient.

  ‘Goodness, gracious, Sesina, what are you about? Open that door immediately, girl.’

  ‘Yes, missus,’ said Sesina obediently. ‘I think it is the landlord, missus.’ She thought of offering to put away the glass and the bottle, but Mrs Dawson was well and truly awake now, getting to her feet immediately, looking in the looking-glass and patting her hair. By the time that Sesina had reached the door, the bottle and the glass had been rapidly tidied away.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, sir,’ Sesina said when she opened the door. Two of them there. Mr Doyle was a bit further down the steps, looking across at the river and so she had not seen him through the glass. She kept her attention on the landlord, though. ‘We are all in a heap today, sir,’ she said, dropping a curtsy. ‘What being short-handed and washday in the morning and now, this afternoon, we have the police in the house.’

  ‘The police!’ That gave him a bit of a shock. Gave Mr Doyle a shock too. He had turned to come up the steps, but now he turned back towards the river again. She raised her eyes to look after him. Going towards Adam Street. Walking at a fair old pace. Well, none of her business. She turned back to the landlord.

  ‘Yes, sir, they are up with Mr Cartwright, now, sir.’

  ‘And Mrs Dawson?’

  ‘In her parlour, sir.’

  He frowned a little over that. She could see him thinking about it. And then, unexpectedly he smiled at her. ‘You’re enjoying all of this, aren’t you, little girl,’ he said in a teasing manner. Rich as anything, so they’d heard, but very friendly. Americans were so different to the English, she thought. No English landlord would bother about someone like herself. They would just despise her. Call her a skivvy. Never think of her as having opinions, having a laugh at them behind their backs.

  ‘I’m very upset about Isabella, sir,’ she said and she knew from the change in his expression that he recognized the note of sincerity in her voice. ‘I would do anything to help the gentlemen to bring that murderer to justice.’

  ‘Good girl, good girl,’ he said heartily and then gave her half a crown.

  Nothing like the Americans for generosity, she thought. And then she wondered whether she could make use of him. ‘Isabella has been writing down her suspicions about someone, sir,’ she said in a whisper. ‘I think that’s why the police are here. They’re upstairs in Mr Cartwright’s room, second-floor tenant, sir.’

  That interested him. She could see it in his eyes. For a moment he looked towards the stairs, just as though he was tempted to go and join them, but then he said, ‘Well, I won’t disturb them. Mrs Dawson in, is she?’

  ‘Yes, sir, in the parlour, sir.’ Sesina showed him into the parlour. What did he want to see the old podge for? She went to listen at the door, but had to move away smartly when the handle turned.

  ‘Just wondered if you needed some tea, missus,’ she murmured. She didn’t fool Mrs Dawson, who gave Sesina a nasty suspicious look, but the landlord gave her a nice smile through the opened door.

  ‘Waal,’ said the American landlord and Sesina liked the way that he said the word, drawing it out, his mouth smiling all the time. He patted her on the head, not something she liked, but always all right when a coin was popped into the apron pocket at the same time. ‘You got yourself some darn good girl there, Mrs Dawson, but we can’t have her worn out, can we? You fix up for the other girl to work fulltime with her and any extra help that you can get. Someone for washday, what do you think, Mrs Dawson?’

  ‘That would be most convenient, sir. Thank you, sir.’ Make a cat laugh, she wou
ld, with her curtsies and her genteel accent, mouth pursed like a lady. ‘Oh, here come Mr Dickens and his friend,’ she said, still in that prissy tone of voice, as if everyone couldn’t hear the two of them coming down the stairs, talking so loud and that fat inspector pounding on the steps, make the stair rods pop out if he wasn’t careful.

  ‘Come in, Mr Dickens, come in, Inspector, Mr Collins, come in, won’t you?’ The American was taking charge now. Had a right to it, of course. Owned the place, didn’t he? Ushering the other two into the room and then smiling at her. ‘No, no tea, thank you, Sesina. Thank you, Mrs Dawson.’

  And Mrs Dawson found herself on the other side of a closed door, staring angrily at Sesina.

  SEVENTEEN

  Wilkie Collins, Basil:

  I looked up at the sky. It was growing very dark. The ragged black clouds, fantastically parted from each other in island shapes over the whole surface of the heavens, were fast drawing together into one huge, formless, lowering mass, and had already hidden the moon for good.

  By God, it was a lie. That woman was lying! And neither of us, neither Dickens nor myself noticed it. I woke in the middle of the night with the words on my lips and swore.

  Every line on that elderly face was clear to me. Every hesitation sounded in my ears. She had misled us. Perhaps not wished us to trace the girl’s origin, the girl’s mother and father. Not wanting to incur blame. What could have been the motive? I lit the candle beside my bed and peered at my watch. Past midnight. I had a strong impulse to get out of bed, to get dressed and to walk the streets, just as Dickens so often did when he brooded a clutch of ideas in preparation for a new book. I got out of bed and walked across to the window, opening the curtain. A fine night. The moon would give me light and I would walk from my rooms down to the Temple Steps and gaze at the river. We lacked a vital piece of evidence, I thought, as I knotted a belcher scarf around my neck and pulled on a pair of trousers over my nightgown. If Mr Cartwright were guilty of the murder of Isabella, what could have been his motive? He had been confident and dismissive about the prospect of uncovering any murder in his past. Had totally denied ever being a teacher in Yorkshire, had said that he had never even visited the place. And, somehow, as I thought the matter over in the dim light from my candle, his voice in my ear bore conviction. The man, I thought, was an unpleasant, unprepossessing fellow, may well have been accused of mistreating a boy, perhaps in Greenwich, but that was not to say that he was a murderer, or even a liar. As I laced up my boots, I went through the law cases that I had perused during my idle years of study, more for getting plots for stories than with any idea of passing examinations. Surely a motive was of importance. With no witnesses, with no evidence possible to be found at this stage – and the inspector had made a brief, but thorough search of the schoolmaster’s two rooms, without finding a single spot of blood. Surely it would have been impossible for the man to murder a girl, to beat her and to carry her body to the riverside without leaving some trace, and without alerting someone within the house.

  Without evidence like that, there was no possibility of accusing the man, I thought, as I pulled on a woolly cardigan, covered all with a warm overcoat and made for the door. Unless a strong motive could be found and then the means could be revaluated, the murder of Isabella will go unavenged, I said to myself as I went down the steps and out into the night air.

  But the moon, in its capricious manner, had disappeared and everywhere was very dark. I paused for a moment outside the door. To go down to the river now would risk a broken ankle or worse. I turned and went towards the Fleet Street Gate, guiding myself by the dim light which glimmered from the watchman’s lantern.

  ‘Dark night, sir,’ he said, holding the gate open for me to pass through.

  ‘It is, indeed,’ I said. Dark night, I repeated silently, as I went up the narrow passageway that led to Fleet Street. A night for a murder. I remembered poor Isabella’s penned words about the murderer walking the dark streets of London at night. Did he? Or did he sleep peacefully in his bed, sure that no one could pin the evil deed on him? I turned my mind back to the thought that had woken me from my sleep.

  Mrs Peters.

  She had been eager, very prepared to help.

  And then had come her unfortunate remark about the unreality of a ‘grateful’ Oliver Twist. I smiled to myself as I dodged a drunken man with his arm around a disreputable-looking girl. Dickens, the soul of generosity to friends and indeed, to the friendless, hated criticism of his creations. The atmosphere had stiffened.

  The woman had hesitated, I remembered that well. She had hesitated, giving us a penetrating look, trying to size us up, trying to decide whether we were worthy of trust. Then she had gone on to relate the entry about the baby, Isabella, and had told us of the two articles left behind, the string of beads, and the tantalizing story of a broken knife that had been in the fire.

  And then.

  I cudgelled my brains in an effort to remember. There had been a hesitation in her manner. That I was certain of. And I remembered also that her glance had met mine, when Dickens was frowning at the tablecloth. I could visualize that glance. She had wondered whether she could trust me, or whether she should say nothing. And then she had hurriedly gone on to talk about the knife.

  But what if there had been a third object there – what if Mrs Peters had been on the brink of telling us about it, but for some reason had mistrusted Dickens, had not wanted to reveal this third object for some reason. Perhaps even more definite evidence of a father which she, being sorry for the woman, Anne Gordon, had decided to suppress. She had deemed Dickens a man who had no esteem for women, had wronged him, I thought. It had taken me a year of close friendship before I realized that the great and the successful Mr Dickens had a gaping hollow of terrible insecurity within, cloaked by a joking, hail-fellow-well-met exterior. Money was of great importance to him. And in order to get money, then he had to please his readers. And in order to please his readers, he had to present a glorified view of women, present them as saintly home-loving goddesses. But, of course, deep down, he did not believe in these creations, these perfect women. To hear him laugh admiringly about the spirit and the brazen self-confidence of the girls in Urania Cottage was to know that the women Mrs Peters objected to were a crowd-pleasing creation.

  I stopped outside Al Tack’s Opium Den and gazed at it meditatively. Perhaps I should try a pipe. It might open up the puzzle, give me insight. After all, laudanum was a mixture of opium and alcohol and I had found it of great assistance when I was troubled with pain from gout. Still not a good idea to take opium, I thought. Laudanum was different. Just one tenth of it was the deadly opium, the rest was made from health-giving herbs and sherry wine. As I hesitated at the door, I saw a familiar figure lying on a couch within. The lofty forehead and the bald head glistened in the light, and the pale blue eyes, turned towards the ceiling, were lacking all reason, all discrimination. The man was completely under the influence. A row of pipes, I counted seven, beside him showed that Mr Doyle had been there for most of the evening, if not for most of the day. I drew back hastily, filled with repugnance as I looked at the slack muscles of the drooling mouth, the stained coat, the spectacles askew upon his nose and the drooping eyelids. I thought I knew the secret now of why his rent was paid by a solicitor who managed a family estate, rather than by the man himself.

  My momentary temptation had passed. I turned to go away from the opium den but then I paused. An elderly Chinese woman, lying across a bed or sofa, sat up and began to blow down the pipe beside her. As she blew, shading it with her lean hand, she concentrated its red spark of light and it served in the dim light of the room as a lamp to illuminate the figure of the lawyer lying beside her. And to illuminate, in striking detail, the engraved gold watch that had slipped from his waistcoat pocket and now hung dangling from its gold chain. A beautiful watch, gleaming and without a scratch, brand new in appearance. On the other side of the room, a rough-looking sailor, less dazed than the
others was sitting bolt upright, a knife in his hand and his eyes on the gold watch.

  I didn’t like Jeremiah Doyle; not at all, but I couldn’t see him robbed or even murdered while I stood by and did nothing. I couldn’t turn my back on him. Leaving the door to the street open, I strode in, crossed the floor, not looking from right to left, not allowing feelings of panic to overcome me, but trying to act as casually as if I had seen a friend in a restaurant.

  ‘Mr Doyle,’ I said, shaking him by the shoulder. ‘Mr Doyle, it’s Wilkie Collins, the friend of your landlord. Come with me, Mr Doyle.’ I remembered the time when we had met and how I had disliked him for the sneering, supercilious glances that he gave over the top of his spectacles, but now the spectacles had fallen askew, lodged at a crazy angle by the tip of his nose, and the sneering mouth was slack, displaying some blackened teeth above a coated tongue. The pale blue eyes tried to focus on my face, but I could see from the haze upon them that he could hardly see me. I hooked my arm under his shoulder and raised him. He was a tall man and I was a small one, but beneath the expensive broadcloth of his coat, he was skeleton-thin. I raised him without difficulty, tucked his expensive gold watch back into its pocket and moved him towards the door.

  The old woman in the background said something, but I ignored her. My eye was on the sailor with a knife. He made a move as if to come towards us and I shouted out, ‘Cabbie, Cabbie, come and lend me a hand.’

  There was, of course, no cabman outside, but the unexpectedly loud voice in this roomful of dazed and zombie-like figures acted like a sudden shower of icy rain. Suddenly all muttering stopped. The sailor took a step backwards, retreated into the shadows, the old woman pulled a shawl over her head as though a bright light had shone in her face and the fat man desperately sucked at his pipe for reassurance. With strength that I didn’t know I possessed, I hauled the sleepwalking form of the lawyer up to a standing position, tucked his cane over his arm, tugged him towards the door, opened it, thrust him outside, and then slammed it shut behind us.