Murder on Charing Cross Road

by Joan Smith

  “Evening, Black,” Coffen said. “I see you’re keeping on the qui vive.”

  Black gave a weary sigh. “I am, though I hardly know why I bother. Things ain’t the same for me since she left.”

  “She didn’t go far,” Coffen pointed out.

  “True, but she’s not here. Have you ate, Mr. Pattle, or will you join me in a wee bite? I’d be happy for the company.”

  “I could do with a bite,” Coffen admitted.

  Black led him to the kitchen, where he rustled up some tasty gammon and eggs. In his dreams, Black assumed the role of Lord Blackwell, friend and beloved of Lady Luten. He usually kept his infatuation on a tight leash, but his conversation that evening gave Pattle the hint he was sorely missing her.

  To cheer him up, Coffen said, “You can go see her right now. I have this invitation Prance wanted me to give her. It’s not important, an invite to some do they likely won’t be attending.”

  “I’ll do that, Mr. Pattle. I’ll see she gets it,” he said eagerly, and took the invitation.

  “Thankee, Black. And if you get lonesome, just pop over to my place for a chin wag, any time.”

  Black’s lined face creased in a smile of gratitude. Mr. Pattle was his favorite of all the gentlemen of the Brigade. Coffen left and Black made a careful toilette before going to call on Lady Luten. But when Evans answered the door, he learned that the Lutens were dining with the Greys before going on to Lady Jergen’s party. They must have left while he was getting dressed. “I’ll see it’s delivered when they return,” Evans said, taking the envelope.

  Black returned across the street to his lonely vigil. Since she was out for the evening, he’d continue reading Sir Reginald’s novel, which she had been kind enough to lend him. It was surprisingly good, if a bit creepy to read alone in a house at night. Gave him goosebumps.

  * * * *

  Meanwhile Sir Reginald was making a grande toilette to attend a party he would never reach. His butler, Villier, was hard pressed to come up with a toilette that was dashing enough to turn heads while still adhering to the gothic mode his master now favored. A step too far and he would look as if he were attending a funeral. They compromised on a black jacket, severely arranged white cravat with a dark amethyst pin and of course the cape and slouch hat. To his delight, Prance had already seen three similar capes and one hat about town. It had always been his dream to come up with a new sartorial style. He was in perfect humour with his little world when he left home that evening.

  Chapter Three

  Prance had not yet gotten around to changing his carriage. He was uncertain just what sort of carriage a gothic hero would drive. It must be black, of course, with perhaps a black team drawing it instead of his bays. Deep in the throes of this problem, he stood a moment, imagining how the new carriage and team would look. Unfortunately, that combination was fit only for a funeral. Would a team of greys do? He would have to consult with Villier.

  Meanwhile, it was a perfect April night, clear and cloudless with a slim wedge of moon silvering the neighbourhood. He didn’t even glance at the post-boy who held the door open for him, or notice that his groom's shoulders were inches wider than when last seen. His thoughts were all directed inward, until the jostling of the carriage over the rough roadway became too tumultuous to ignore.

  Glancing out the window, he saw not the stately mansions of Grosvenor Square with footmen holding torches to light the guests’ way from their carriages, but a row of mean hovels. What the devil was going on? Pelkey had taken the wrong route and become lost. But Pelkey would never make such a monstrous error.

  He gave the drawstring a sharp yank. The carriage drew to a halt and he sat waiting for the post-boy to get down and open the door, to make explanations and apologies. As soon as he saw the masked face at the door he knew having taken the wrong route was not his only problem. Something was dreadfully amiss. The masked man wore his livery, but the jacket was ill-fitting. And the man was not alone either. Another masked man hopped down from the driver’s perch and loomed up in front of him. A huge bruiser of a man he was, squeezed into Pelkey’s jacket that hung open in front.

  His heart began thumping wildly in his chest. Prance was averse to physical violence, especially when directed against himself. He assumed they were footpads, but how the deuce had they got hold of his rig, and where were his own servants?

  “Here is my purse, gentlemen,” he said, trying to sound friendly and not afraid, though his shaking voice betrayed him. He regretted the loss of the purse more than the money in it. He had designed the purse himself and had it decorated with his family crest — three lions passant, gold on sable.

  The man at the door snatched the purse and grabbed his extended hand. “No need for roughness, gentlemen,” Prance chided. The bruiser yanked, and Prance landed in a heap at his feet. The next five minutes were pure, undiluted horror, worse than his worst nightmare. The man pulled him up by his cape collar, clenched his large paw into a fist and landed him a facer that sent him sprawling again. Blood spurted from his nose, his eyes refused to focus. The attacker looming above him seemed to have multiplied into two or three men, all of them scowling at him over a black mask.

  The smaller fellow began ransacking his pockets, then jumped into his carriage and proceeded to tear it apart. He rifled the side pockets, took out Prance’s pistol and stuck it in his waistband. The bigger bruiser yanked Prance to his feet again and demanded in a gruff voice, “Where is it?”

  Prance felt the blood running down from his surely broken nose, over his lips and chin, falling in drops on his cravat. "I gave it to you! It’s all I have with me. Here, take my watch.” He pulled out his watch, a family heirloom given to him by his grandfather. The man grabbed it and stuck it in his pocket. The other man called something from the carriage.

  In his distress, Prance couldn’t make out the words. “What is it you want?” he cried.

  A footstep was heard at the entrance to the dark laneway. A bobbing light came toward them. The Watch, thank God! The two thieves exchanged a look, knocked Prance down again, gave him a sharp kick in the ribs, and took off on foot, leaving Prance an aching, bleeding heap on the ground.

  The bobbing light came nearer. “Gorblimey!” a young voice said. Not the Watch, but a link-boy with his light of tow and pitch to lead pedestrians through the dark, but as welcome as the rain after a drought. “The footpads got you, eh mister?” the boy said.

  “Help me up,” Prance gasped, and the boy reached out a dirty hand to pull him up. Every bone in his body ached. His nose was bleeding copiously, splattering his cravat and waistcoat. He couldn’t stand up straight for the pain in his stomach and ribs. He feared he was going to cast up his accounts, but the feeling passed, leaving him weak.

  “You want I should go for help?” the boy said.

  “Yes, please. No!” He didn’t want to be left alone. They might come back and go at him again. “Just help me along out of this place.”

  “What about your rattler and prads? You can’t leave ‘em here. They’ll be took.”

  “I can’t drive. I’m in pain.”

  “I’ll drive you,” the boy said, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Do you know how to drive a team?”

  “I’ve droved a dog cart.”

  “Just take the reins and walk them. I’ll get into the carriage.” It proved impossible to lift his leg to get into the carriage, however, so he slowly limped along, using the link-boy’s shoulder as a crutch.

  “You shouldn’t oughter of come into Long Acre alone, mister,” the boy said. “Everybody knows that.”

  “Is that where we are? What are you doing here?”

  “I live here, don’t I? Just setting out on my rounds. Where do you want to go to, mister?”

  “To Berkeley Square.”

  “You’ll never make it. Why don’t I git my pa? He’ll help you.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “Just a few steps along.”

  They
turned a corner, continued a few steps past ramshackle buildings that looked ready to fall down. A mangy dog began following them till the link-boy threw a rock at it. They soon reached a building that looked abandoned, but for the dim light of a rush lamp at one window. A dark-visaged hulk of a man loomed up in the doorway. For an awful moment Prance feared he had been delivered to the den of his attackers who had beat and robbed him. And he had nothing left to give them but his cravat pin. Odd the footpads hadn’t taken it. Suddenly a swarm of young urchins came streaming out of the doorway, pointing and jabbering.

  “The footpads got this here gent, Pa,” the link-boy said. “He wants to git to Berkeley Square but he can’t drive hisself.”

  “Well now,” said the man in a kindly way. “You done right to bring him here, Tommy. I’ll git him home.”

  “Thank you,” Prance said in a weak voice. The man helped him into the carriage. “You come along, young Tom. We might need a messenger. Park your light and hop up here with me.” Tom handed his light to the biggest of the boys who had come out of the house, gave him a few sharp orders and scrambled up on the box with his father.

  “Tell your ma where we’re off to,” the father called to the urchins, who scampered off, back into the house.

  Prance collapsed on the seat, so distraught he didn’t notice at first the state his carriage was in, the seat covers slashed and the side pockets ripped from their moorings. When he did notice, it flashed into his mind that this made an excellent excuse for a new carriage. But how had all this happened? Where were his own servants? His grandfather’s watch, gone forever. His poor body aching in every atom and his new jacket ruined. And for what?

  He had given them his purse containing ten pounds. The purse itself was no small loss. It was made of sharkskin to his own design. The man hadn’t even looked in it, though he hadn’t wasted any time sticking it in his own pocket. They were no ordinary footpads. They just robbed you and ran off.

  He drew out his handkerchief and patted gingerly at his bloodied nose. What was it his attacker had said. “Where is it?” What could it possibly be that he wanted? The trip home seemed endless but eventually they reached Berkeley Square. The carriage stopped and young Tom appeared at the carriage door.

  “Which house, mister?” he asked, and Prance pointed to it, farther along the block. When they reached his house, the father helped him out. Black, ever vigilant, was there like a shot from the house across the street.

  “Sir Reginald!” he cried. “Whatever happened to you? Who are these fellows?” He cast a suspicious glance at the rescuers.

  “My saviours, Black,” Prance said, casting a wan smile on the pair.

  The father got down from the perch and extended his hand. “Mr. Ted Vickers by name, and my lad Tommy. He found this gentleman all in a heap at Long Acre. Been set upon by footpads. He was scarce able to crawl.”

  Black took charge at once. “The devil you say. Let’s get him into the house,” he said, and with a strong arm supporting him on either side, Prance was half led, half carried in. “I’ll send one of your lads off for a sawbones,” Black said to Prance. Servants seemed to pop out from every corner as he led Prance to the sofa and asked Soames to send one of them for Doctor Knighton.

  “Call Villier,” Prance added in a weak voice, then lay back against the cushions and closed his eyes.

  Villier soon came running. He was a weak copy of his master, so alike in size that he could be sent to Weston for the measuring of a new jacket, so similar in taste that there was no danger of too large a button being chosen, or too narrow a lapel. Villier took one look at his master and turned pale.

  “Sir Reginald!” he gasped. “Are you all right? What a foolish question! Hartshorn, and a nip of brandy — no feathers,” he said, and dashed off to supply the necessities. Prance abhorred the smell of burning feathers wafting under his nose. After a sniff of hartshorn and a sip of brandy, Prance was able to tell his tale in a halting manner, with Villier hovering at his shoulder, dabbing at his bloodied nose and twittering uselessly.

  Black, ever sensible, said, “What of your own lads, Sir Reginald? Pelkey was never in on this vicious attack."

  “Certainly not. They didn’t come home? Someone should go to the stable and see what became of them. Beaten up like myself, no doubt.”

  Black ordered a junior footman to dart off to Sir Reginald’s stable and find out what happened to them. Black spoke quietly to Prance, indicating that if he wanted to be rid of his rescuers, a reward was the quickest way to go about it. “Give them anything they ask,” Prance said. “They saved my life.”

  “A guinea is what they’ll be expecting,” he said.

  “Make it five,” Prance said. “Surely my life is worth more than a guinea. Villier knows where I keep spare money.”

  Black spoke to Villier and the thing was done. The Vickers, pere et fils , left, smiling from ear to ear, so elated the long trek back to Long Acre seemed a mere stroll.

  Doctor Knighton duly arrived and ordered Sir Reginald to bed, where Villier cleaned him up and got him into a soft but warm nightshirt. The doctor announced his nose not broken but his ribs cracked, gave him a dose of laudanum for the pain, bound up his cracked ribs and said he would return in the morning.

  Black remained at Sir Reginald’s house to have a word with the coachman and post-boy when they returned. He hardly felt it necessary. He knew what they would say. They had been taken by surprise at the mews, knocked out, tied up and left while their attackers stripped off their jackets and hats and took over the carriage. The attackers had been masked, they couldn’t give much of a description of them except that one was bigger than the other. No, neither of them had spoken to the other by name. In fact they hadn’t spoken at all.

  Most gentlemen would have noticed the change of servants, but Sir Reg was more interested in looking fine than anything else. In the dark of night with his mind on the party he was going to, he hadn’t noticed. They had driven him to a dark, lonely area, beaten him up and robbed him.

  It gave Black an excellent excuse to visit her with all the details when she returned that night. Alas, he had a few glasses of ale at Sir Reggie’s place before leaving. When he got home he resumed his reading of Shadows on the Wall to pass the time. His eyes eventually grew tired, he closed them and finally fell asleep. When he awoke at three a.m., the lights at Luten’s house were all extinguished. He’d missed her again.

  Chapter Four

  Heavily dosed with laudanum, Prance didn’t hear a sound when his house was broken into and ransacked in the early hours of the morning. The job was done so quietly that none of his many servants heard a thing. Prance knew nothing about it until nine o’clock the next morning when Villier tiptoed into his darkened bedroom, placed his breakfast tray on the bedside table, opened the curtains and returned to the bedside to clasp his master’s two hands. Prance knew something was amiss when Villier didn’t even wish him a good morning.

  "I don't know whether I have the heart to tell you the latest outrage," Villier said, enjoying every moment of the drama. Like his master, whom he resembled in temperament as well as physically, he was in his element. “Are you feeling very brave, milord?” Villier was allowed to call him “milord” when they were alone.

  Prance drew a sigh, winced and said, “If you tell me you are leaving me, Villier, I don’t think I could bear it.”

  “Oh never! It is not that bad!”

  “Then I can bear the rest. Tell me.”

  “We’ve had a visit from house-breakers!” Villier announced, and regarded his audience to see the effect of his announcement. His master’s gasp of astonished dismay was quite satisfactory. “Your study is in a state of utter chaos. Papers all over the floor. The library the same and the drawing room. Here, best have a sip of cocoa. I put a wee drop of brandy in it to sustain you.” He held the cup to Prance’s lips.

  “If it weren’t that you’re here, Villier, I could believe I’d died and gone to hell.” This dramatic s
peech was followed by a more practical, “Much damage in the drawing room?”

  “Nothing irreversible,” Villier assured him as he drew up a chair and settled in for a good cose. “None of the pictures taken or mutilated, your Aubusson carpet can be cleaned up. It’s just muddied a little. Fortunately your Sevrès boxes and Murano vases had been put away when we redid the salon. Now isn’t it time you tell me what this is all about, Sir Reginald?” he asked in a severe voice, “milord” abandoned.

  Prance took another sip of cocoa, frowned and said, “These are deep doings, Villier. My study and library were searched, you say?”

  “And your drawing room.”

  “Does that not suggest they were after written matter? Everyone has been asking me what I am working on now. I indicated I am gestating a new gothic. It’s pretty well known I work from an outline. Some unsuccessful, jealous writer has broken in looking for my notes.” He could not quite suppress a smile, to think how jealous other writers must be of his success.

  “But you aren’t working on anything,” Villier pointed out. “You’ve complained a dozen times that you’ve run out of ideas.” Then he added quickly, “For the time being, I mean, while you’re so busy.”

  “Which explains why it was necessary to ransack three rooms, Villier. There was nothing to find.”

  “But do you think they expected you to carry those notes with you? I am thinking of last night’s brutal attack in your carriage.”

  “We writers always carry about a notebook to jot down ideas. Certainly that is the answer. What else could it be? Nothing was actually taken.”

  “There was your purse and watch.”

  “To make it look like an ordinary robbery. Their having forgotten my cravat pin pretty well proves that. No thief worth his salt would have overlooked that. After they’d robbed me, the ringleader said, ‘'Where is it?’ It obviously was not money they were after. They just took it to cloud the issue, then came here to continue the search when they failed to find my notebook on me.”