by A S Croyle
We heard that the Princess Alice cut between the Collier and the South Shore. The steamer swung broadside and was hit at full speed. I heard one survivor say, “The Collier seemed to hover over the starboard bow of the Princess Alice. I heard a rippin’ crash as the sharp edge of the bow cut right into us. Shook and quivered. I heard a crew member say the Bywell... she drove right through to the engine-room.” He paused, then added, “We was sliced in two.” Water gushed in; the forward part of the Princess Alice sank like a bag of rocks.
Another survivor said she lifted almost to the perpendicular, the aft part standing for a few moments, and then she was gone. “The last thing I heard before I was pulled out,” he said, “was the screechin’ of sea gulls.”
There were a few lifeboats, but most were not accessible. Most could not swim. Many women wore voluminous dresses, pulling them down deep into the water because the fabric quickly became soaked. The Bywell let down ropes; a number of small boats attempted to rescue the drowning passengers. Only a few passengers were able to clamber aboard the Bywell.
I heard a survivor say that the Princess Alice was cut in two and, within five minutes, she was “completely heeled over and sinking in deep water,” meaning she was leaning far over to one side and going under. I only knew what ‘heeled over’ meant because Sherlock had explained in maritime terms the sinking of the Gloria Scott from which Victor’s father had escaped many years ago.
I watched as the dead were pulled from the water and taken to the Town Hall and to the boardroom of the steamboat company on the Wharf, both of which were turned into temporary mortuaries. Shells and stretchers laden with the dead continued to appear for hours. Most of the dead were women and children. I realized that there were more lost than saved. Some seven hundred passengers had journeyed on the Princess Alice that afternoon. Most perished.
When Michael and I entered the temporary mortuary in the boardroom, the floor was littered with bodies covered in sheets and sacks. We helped the police lay the corpses in order, put labels on them, numbers mostly, and continued to feel inadequate, waiting anxiously to receive those who we might actually be able to assist.
I went to the balcony outside the boardroom window to wipe away the sewage and soot from the four children who lay there; they were not much older than my nephew. I was overcome with a melancholy I could barely withstand as I washed the dirt from their pretty, innocent faces and their Sunday-best clothes, now cold and limp, wet and black from sewage and pollution that pervaded that part of the river. The site of the crash was immediately down river of the Barking sewer outfall, which was in the process of releasing raw sewage into the river when the collision occurred. Passengers were bogged down by the black, foul, poisonous sewage.
I imagined their last moments. People below in the two saloons, scrambling to exit, tumbling over one another, clutching and tearing at each other, women and children crushed in the stampede. I imagined mothers seeing their babies and toddlers wrenched from their arms, fathers trying in vain to shove through the mad crowd, trapped and unable to reach their children.
The captain of the Bywell, a man named Harrison, shouted orders to his crew to work the rescue. In a frenzy, they threw out life-lines and lowered boats and the ship’s siren sounded, a cry for assistance. Captain Harrison dropped anchor to stop drifting downstream, not realizing that many drowning passengers were clinging to it. I heard in my mind the clank of the chain as the cable lowered through the hawse-hole. I saw the poor wretches who held to it pulled deeper into the watery grave.
Another steamer belonging to the same company and named the Duke of Teck, attempted a rescue, but by the time she arrived, the river was full of drowning people, screaming in anguish and begging for help. A passenger aboard the Duke, was hailed for saving several passengers. He had pulled six or seven women from the river. Although we heard other tales of amazing escapes, we heard far more stories of the pitiful screams of the dying.
The first body to be identified was that of a steward who had been in the service of the London Steamboat Company all his adult life. Another steward, however, survived. I was within earshot when he told a company official that he, William Law, was below decks in the saloon of the Princess Alice and heard a crash at around eight p.m. He ran up on deck, heard water rushing in below, and saw that the paddleboat was sinking. He rushed to the gangway and shouted to those below to get to the deck. “I ran into a young lady,” he said, “took her onto my shoulders, and jumped overboard with her.” They were now just two amongst a mass of those struggling in the water. He swam to shore, “but the young woman... she slipped away from me,” he said, haltingly. “I lost her.”
One of the Princess Alice’s engineers was also saved, but the captain, William Grinstead, and the remainder of his crew, were lost. The company’s superintendent of the fleet, Mr. Towse, was on board with his wife and family, but he went on shore at Gravesend. His lifeless wife was brought to Woolwich; at that time, their children were still missing and feared lost in the dark river.
At midnight, officials at the Plumstead Workhouse were conscripted to do what they could to render help. Michael and I, and the other doctors at the scene, rendered treatment to the least injured survivors as they appeared, each rising from the slug like a phoenix from the ashes. They were taken to nearby infirmaries by an assortment of cabs and Black Marias, the patrol wagons used by the police.
As dawn approached, exhausted, covered with grime ourselves and bordering on shock, Michael and I stood on the dock, peering into the dark river, now eerily silent. “They will be pulling them out for weeks,” he said, “Months.”
I knew Michael was right. Staring out across the blackness, wondering what other horrors awaited us, I whispered, “I know.”
It was when I turned to the sound of footsteps that I saw Sherlock walking toward us. He said nothing, I said nothing. I fell into his arms.
21
He held me close. “Are you all right? Poppy, are you - ?”
I did not try to break the embrace. I looked up at him. “I am. I am fine. But Sherlock-”
He stroked my limp and sooty hair. “Thank God.” Then he said, slowly, solemnly, “She had but two lifeboats. Two.”
He pulled slightly away and looked down at me. He kissed my forehead. His expression, his manner, revealed his soul and, for a moment, he showed that he knew how this catastrophe would affect me, that he was concerned about me and that he did care for me, deeply. But I knew he would retreat from sentiment quickly. To save him from embarrassment, I squirmed from his arms. “I need not guess how you have employed your evening. You have been talking to people at the London Steamboat office.”
“Quite so. Off and on. I have been talking to the steward who survived and a few others. Tomorrow, I shall widen my field of inquiries. I have just heard that there is a growing number of people who have heard about this and they’ve come out on trains from London to rummage in the wreckage and carry off curiosities. Lestrade has dispatched officers to prevent further vandalism, and I understand there will be two policemen posted day and night until the remains of the SS Princess Alice can be moved to the dockyard for examination and analysis.”
“Dear God,” Michael sighed. “Curiosities.”
“Michael,” Sherlock said, “you look a fright. As do you, Poppy,” he added, clutching my hand. “They have tea and some food in the Town Hall. You should eat something.”
“What about you?” I asked. “I imagine you arrived as soon as you heard and it’s almost one o’clock.”
“I had some chipped beef and a cold beer at dinner time. But now there is no time to eat or sleep. There is work to be done.”
I knew there was no point in arguing with him.
On the way to my uncle’s house, we stopped at Sherlock’s place on Montague because he insisted that he could think better if he had his violin. By the time we arrived, Uncle h
ad come and gone. Aunt Susan told us that their train in Scotland had been delayed, but as soon they arrived in London and heard the news, he set out for the wharf. Martha brought out a tray of tea, but Aunt Susan and Sherlock disappeared. Soon, Michael excused himself to go home to relieve Alexander’s caretaker, who had been with the baby for at least ten hours beyond her shift. I went upstairs to my bedroom.
For several minutes, I think I simply stared into space. Then I washed my face, braided my hair and changed into a decent day dress. Inexplicably, it seemed important to me at that moment to appear composed before I went back downstairs. I heard violin music coming from my aunt’s morning room.
I made my way down the hall and stood in the doorway of the morning room for a moment, listening. Sherlock rarely played an actual composition; usually he just plucked and scraped at the strings of the instrument across his knee while he was lost in thought. A few moments later, Sherlock stopped abruptly and looked at me.
“That was beautiful, Sherlock. What was it?”
“Vivaldi’s Concerto for Violin in B Flat, Opus 4, Number 1. I know only a few bars. But your Aunt Susan found it soothing.”
I glanced toward a corner of a room where I saw Aunt Susan leaning against the wall, listening.
“He is quite extraordinary, Poppy.”
Sometimes, I thought. I simply nodded.
“I am quite exhausted,” Aunt Susan said. She gave me a kiss on the cheek as she brushed past and went upstairs.
Sherlock returned his violin to its case and asked “Shall we go into the drawing room?”
I nodded again and followed him. He helped himself to a glass of port. “Your uncle won’t mind?” he asked, raising his glass.
“No, he won’t. And I’ll join you.”
I poured some port into a glass and took two long swallows, then settled down across from him in front of the fireplace. “Vivaldi died over a hundred years ago,” he announced. “In Vienna. I should like to visit that city one day.”
Then he stared off; he was momentarily unreachable.
“You seem pensive.”
“Truth is the fruit of pensive nights and labourious days, Poppy.”
Again, he retreated to that inaccessible part of himself. Finally, I asked, “What happens next, Sherlock? With the investigation?”
“They will continue to try to find the bodies. Many are still missing. The London Steamboat Company has already put in a bid to purchase the remains of SS Princess Alice. It will likely salvage the engines and sell off the rest. There will be some unpleasantness in all of that. And, naturally, there must be an inquest. As always, some legal bother, though I am sure long before it has even commenced, I shall have the answers to their questions.”
“Does anyone have the least idea how this could have happened? Why the boats were in a position to collide?”
“While it is unusual for a captain with Grinstead’s experience to make such a fatal error, I suspect that is what the facts will bear out. I am still balancing the matter in my mind. I find the conflicting stories a very serious impediment to the investigation. I fear it will be quite the menace to the inquest.” He sipped his port, then sighed. “Mycroft was at the wharf, of course.”
I squinted over my glass. “But why?”
“Because he would seek to spare Her Majesty all fear of future annoyance or-”
“But surely, Sherlock, a paddleboat colliding with a cargo ship is no reflection upon Her Majesty.”
“The ship was named for her daughter. This catastrophe occurred on her river in her city. In Mycroft’s mind, any calamity that befalls or occurs in Her Majesty’s realm requires his inquiry and resolution.”
“Perhaps he can help. His resources abound.”
“There certainly is that,” he said, and finished his port.
22
For the first time since I opened my practice, I was actually glad not to have many patients; I felt no compunction about hanging a ‘closed’ sign on my door. It enabled me to go to the wharf each day to assist the people from the community and the women from the workhouse who were tending to the dead. I also did what I could to console the grieving. Hope was lost for any more survivors.
I did not see Sherlock again until Wednesday when he was at the steamboat office, pursuing his investigation and assisting the police. We had tea that afternoon.
He asked how I was doing, and it was hard to reply. I could not stop seeing the faces of the children on the balcony or the many others in the make-shift mortuaries. Part of me shrank from the tasks; with my whole being I lamented those people who had boarded a ferry for an afternoon of amusement but had instead perished horribly, all their dreams and expectations swiftly and brutally dashed. The world could be a wretched place, and I wondered if the tragedy was caused by some failure on the part of the steamboat company... perhaps a faulty component that should have been replaced. So often, it seemed, people in high places had too much money and too little heart and cared nothing for the safety of others, even those customers who made them rich in the first place.
When I met Sherlock, I asked, “So, Sherlock, you are investigating the cause of the ship’s demise. It would seem that you have decided to make a living by working for the police after all. Or the Yard?”
“No, I ask for no compensation for my contribution to the investigation of the Princess Alice incident. Though it is an interesting case.”
An interesting case? I thought. Once again, Sherlock’s ability to compartmentalize and suppress empathy baffled me. I hated to think of him as cold-hearted, but few of the seven hundred on the SS Princess Alice survived and he seemed interested only in the inquiry, the analysis.
“My reputation is growing, though,” he said, “and occasionally I am remunerated. Most recently, by Reginald Musgrave.”
“Reginald! I have not seen him in ages.”
Not since the night he joined Sherlock, Victor, Effie and me for dinner, I thought, remembering the photo in Uncle’s desk. It had been over four years.
“You do remember him?” he asked.
“Certainly. He was Victor’s roommate at Oxford for a short time.”
“Indeed. Shortly after Victor left for India, Reginald transferred to my college, and I ran into him now and then. Then his father died, and he returned to Hurlstone to manage the estate. I had not seen him since, but he called upon me early Monday morning to assist him with a small matter.”
“Tell me,” I said.
“As you may recall, Hurlstone is quite large and he employs many servants. One night, he couldn’t sleep and wandered through the house in search of a book he had been reading. He happened upon his butler, a man named Brunton, who was in the library, staring down at a map. Reginald was about to speak to him when Brunton walked over to the desk and, with a key, opened it. He took out another document and proceeded to study it closely. Reginald then confronted him.
“Brunton had been in his family’s employ for many years, so his behaviour shocked Reginald. He told Brunton to leave at once, but Brunton bargained for a week’s time. A few days later, Brunton disappeared. Reginald and the servants searched everywhere for him; they even dragged the pond. Three nights later, Rachel, a maid who Reginald later discovered was in love with Brunton, had some sort of breakdown. Then she also disappeared.
“After hearing Reginald’s story, I went with him to Sussex and examined the papers in which Brunton had shown so much interest. It turns out one of them was a map and the other was a riddle of sorts, a document that had been handed down for generations in the Musgrave family. They call it The Musgrave Ritual. It was a series of questions and answers, none of which seemed to make sense.”
“But you made sense of them, I take it?”
Sherlock smiled and said, “After a time, yes. I determined that the riddle was a series of clues and mea
surements... for example, a distance from an oak tree to something else. I found a peg hole in the lawn made by Brunton as he measured off distances. Once I went through all the clues, we started to follow the clues, and we ended up in a cellar where we found Brunton.”
“Was he dead?”
“Yes, quite dead. It appears he found his way into a hiding place in the cellar, but he could not have lifted the stone slab by himself. I believe that he enlisted Rachel to assist him in his unscrupulous undertaking, much as that sailor from Squire Trevor’s past enlisted Mrs. Hudson to help him blackmail Squire Trevor. They - Rachel and Brunston - could have lifted the slab together, but they would need support while Brunton went into the cellar to fetch the treasure. I saw her recently, by the way,” he added.
“Who? Rachel?”
“No, Mrs. Hudson. She was visiting her son Morse who apprenticed under the owner of the art shop on Kennington Road. He’s now the owner of the shop and employs assistants of his own. He’s still short and stout. Anyway, he sells statues and paintings... in fact, I believe I may consult with him about the Buddha replicas. He is not yet very experienced, but he has several colleagues with expertise in art.”
“Sherlock, you were saying that you ran into Mrs. Hudson.”
“Oh, yes, she was in London to visit Morse and inspect some properties, and I ran into her at his shop when I went to ask him if he knew anyone who could verify the authenticity of what we found on Musgrave’s estate. She’s doing well. She has been saving to purchase a lease of a home here in London and plans to rent out rooms and offer light housekeeping to her tenants.”
“That sounds like a good plan for her. Now what of Reginald’s maid and the butler?”
“We spoke to the other servants and it seems that Brunton did not return Rachel’s affections. She came to hate him. Based upon Rachel’s sudden breakdown and subsequent disappearance, I have deduced that while he was down in the murky cellar handing up his finds to her, she became enraged and clouted him and let the slab fall back. Or perhaps she deliberately kicked the supports away and left Brunton to die. I suppose it is possible that the slab fell back into place by itself and she panicked. Whatever actually happened, Brunton is dead.”
