A Very Peculiar Plague

by Catherine Jinks

  ‘I have more information,’ he volunteered. ‘There’s two bogles on Warwick Lane. One’s in a beer cellar and one’s in the vaults under Newgate Market. I ain’t so sure about the market, but three kids was living in the beer cellar, and they disappeared one day without taking their dunnage with ’em.’

  There was a moment’s shocked silence as everyone absorbed this news. Then Birdie demanded, ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I went knocking on doors today, searching for bogles,’ Jem revealed. ‘But I didn’t get no further’n Warwick Lane.’

  ‘Warwick Lane?’ said Miss Eames. ‘That runs beside Newgate Prison, surely?’ When Jem nodded (surprised that she should be interested in the actual street rather than what he’d found on it), she added, ‘I did wonder if the prison might attract bogles. It is, after all, a place of great misery and despair, full of evil and dissolute men. Could the traditional belief that bogles are demons have its roots in more than their fondness for dark holes? Perhaps they also prefer locations known for death and wickedness . . .’

  She looked at Alfred, her eyebrows raised. All he did, however, was shrug.

  ‘It could be the hangings they like,’ Birdie allowed. ‘Or it could be the butchers. There’s a good many butchers doing business around the markets, thereabouts, and for all we know, they’re slaughtering their own beef . . .’

  ‘I doubt that slaughterhouses are permitted within the city limits, now that we have railway transport,’ Miss Eames objected. ‘It is a most unsanitary trade, which shouldn’t be pursued in London’s confined spaces.’

  ‘Whether it’s done here or not don’t matter to us.’ Alfred spoke gruffly. ‘For bogles don’t eat cattle, neither living nor dead.’

  ‘But what if it’s the blood they like?’ Birdie exclaimed. She seemed to have forgotten all about Ned Roach. ‘I doubt there’s a bloodier quarter in London, what with all them butchers doing business around Newgate and Smithfield. Mebbe we should try knocking on doors further north, along Giltspur Street—’

  ‘I have.’ Jem interrupted her almost without thinking. When the others gaped at him in confusion, he decided that he might as well come clean, since Alfred was less likely to lose his temper and lash out if Miss Eames were present. ‘That is to say, I asked Josiah Lubbock to do it,’ he confessed.

  Miss Eames gasped.

  ‘Josiah Lubbock?’ said Alfred.

  ‘He were sniffing around the Viaduct Tavern and heard me talking to Mabel,’ Jem went on. It was the truth – of course it was – but not the whole truth. ‘He said he’d have Mr Watkins put up a bill, asking folk to report any missing kids.’

  Alfred narrowed his eyes.

  ‘I told him he should search the streets north o’ Newgate, while I went south,’ Jem revealed. ‘I told him to call in tomorrow, if he has any news.’ Conscious of the muscles twitching in Alfred’s clenched jaw, Jem exclaimed, ‘He’d not be put off! And I made no promises!’

  Miss Eames was shaking her head in grave disapproval. ‘Mr Lubbock is a scoundrel, Jem. It is foolish to trust a man of his type.’

  ‘Yes, but the bill in the tavern is a good idea,’ Birdie piped up. Jem threw her a grateful glance, wondering when Alfred was going to comment. The bogler’s silence struck him as ominous, to say the least. ‘If that whole quarter is stricken,’ Birdie continued, ‘then the folk living there should be told. So they can warn their kids about bogles—’

  Suddenly the cab lurched to a halt. Up on his box, the driver intoned, ‘Drury Lane.’ Alfred immediately pushed open the door beside him.

  ‘Thank’ee for all yer trouble, Miss,’ he said, tipping his hat. ‘I’ll bid you good night, now – and Birdie too.’

  ‘Please, Mr Bunce.’ Miss Eames reached over to grab his cuff. ‘Consider what you’re doing. For the sake of a few shillings, you’re putting young lives at risk. Can this be justified, when the circumstances are so very strange?’ As Alfred opened his mouth, she continued urgently, ‘There can be no way of knowing how many bogles you might encounter at Smithfield. Yet you would parade two little boys like tethered goats in a jungle clearing—’

  ‘Miss, I don’t like this no more’n you do.’ Alfred’s tone was very stern. He wrenched his sleeve from her grip, his face lengthening. ‘The last thing I want is to see children facing down bogles. But ain’t it better to have trained kids do it, and come out alive? For them other poor creatures, as don’t know a bogle from a beer-keg . . . Miss Eames, they’ve no chance at all.’

  He gazed at her for a moment – and she stared back dumbly. Then he broke eye contact. ‘Get out,’ he told Jem. ‘I’ll pass you the sack.’

  There was nothing in his voice to suggest that Jem was about to be punished. So Jem glanced at Birdie, who knew Alfred better than anyone. If there was a pitying look on her face, Jem would be running away as soon as his feet hit the cobbles.

  But Birdie was fuming. She sat with her arms folded, glaring out the window.

  ‘Jem!’ Alfred snapped. With a start Jem jumped to his feet. He pushed past Alfred and scrambled down onto the road, where he stood in a puddle, ready to receive the bogler’s sack.

  Soon he and Alfred were walking down Drury Lane. Though the evening had turned foggy, the street was crowded with theatre-goers: gentlemen in top hats, ladies in fur-lined mantles. Jem saw the light of a shrouded gas-lamp glinting on earrings and watch-chains. He saw a pack of drunken clerks being followed by a pickpocket, but he didn’t say anything. Nor did he peer too closely at the young crossing-sweepers who were tumbling for tips on the corner of Princes Street. Though the thick, acrid fog caught in his throat, he tried not to cough.

  He didn’t want to draw attention to himself.

  Alfred remained silent until they reached the lane where he lived. Then he paused in front of a lighted tavern window and turned to Jem.

  ‘You’ll tell me the truth, here and now, or I’ll not let you in tonight,’ he said.

  Jem swallowed. He glanced down Orange Court, which was a murky void lit by only one or two open doorways. Somewhere towards the rear of that narrow slot, high above street level, Ned was safely cuddled up in bed next to a blazing fire.

  ‘I ain’t a fool,’ Alfred continued. ‘I know you bin flamming and I want to know why.’

  ‘I never lied to you,’ Jem countered. ‘Not once.’

  ‘So what you bin keeping to yerself, then?’ Alfred’s voice was growing rougher by the second. ‘Out with it. For I’ll not stand about in a coal-black London Particular, coughing up bits o’ lung while I wait for you to fashion more lies—’

  ‘I saw Eunice Pickles.’ Jem cut him off abruptly. ‘Two days ago, near the prison. She were heading for Warwick Lane.’

  Alfred absorbed this news in silence, as an endless stream of swaddled pedestrians surged past him. At last he said, ‘Sal’s daughter?’

  Jem nodded.

  ‘Have you seen her since?’ was Alfred’s next question.

  ‘No.’ Jem lifted his chin defiantly. ‘But I’ll keep looking till I find her again. Her and her ma.’

  Alfred didn’t speak for a while. He simply stared at Jem, his eyes glittering in the dense shadow cast by his hat-brim. At last he muttered, ‘Is that why you went searching for bogles? To see if you could catch a glimpse o’ Sal?’

  Again Jem nodded. ‘Josiah Lubbock promised to help,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Aye, he’ll do that. Then make you regret you ever asked.’ Alfred shook his head. ‘I thought you was a canny lad, but you ain’t. First you bargain with a speeler like Lubbock, then you go putting yerself in the way o’ Sal Pickles, who’d cut out yer throat sooner’n let you peach on her.’

  Still shaking his head, he turned on his heel and plunged into Orange Court. Jem stood staring after him, wondering what to do. Stay? Go? There was money in Jem’s pocket, but it wouldn’t last long. And he wasn’t familiar with this part of London . . .

  Then he saw Alfred’s dim silhouette stop and turn. A pale hand beckoned. ‘You coming or
not?’ the bogler growled.

  Jem hesitated. Was it an ambush? ‘You ain’t going to beat me, once we get inside?’ he squawked at last.

  This time the silence dragged on and on. Finally Alfred murmured, ‘If that’s what you think, then Sal’s got more to answer for ’n you’ll ever know, lad.’

  He didn’t sound angry – just very disheartened. Jem caught up with him again on the front doorstep.

  Nothing more was said as they both trudged wearily upstairs, side by side.

  23

  AN UNWELCOME ADDITION

  Josiah Lubbock didn’t appear on Alfred’s doorstep the next morning. But when Alfred, Jem and Ned arrived at Smithfield Market – after a long and dreary walk in the rain – they discovered that Mr Lubbock had preceded them.

  ‘Yer friends are upstairs, in the office,’ Bob Ballard informed Alfred, after shaking him by the hand and greeting him in a deep, sepulchral voice. The butcher was tall and very thin, with a lantern jaw, hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. He had almost no hair on his head, though his jutting eyebrows were thick and bushy. ‘I thought it best to leave ’em there, it being cleaner than the shop,’ he added.

  Alfred blinked. ‘Friends?’ he said. ‘What friends?’

  ‘Mr Gilfoyle and Mr Lubbock.’ The butcher went on to explain that he would be unable to escort Alfred down to the goods depot, but that he had asked one of the market constables, Leonard Pike, to do it for him. ‘I’ll fetch Constable Pike now, if you’d care to join yer friends,’ Mr Ballard continued, pointing up at one of the endless galleries that flanked Smithfield Market’s central avenue. Covered by a great, arched roof made of iron and glass, with dozens of cast-iron columns holding it up, the giant structure could have been mistaken for a cathedral, if it hadn’t been full of hanging beef. Even Mr Ballard looked more like a clergyman than a butcher, despite his blood-smeared apron.

  ‘If you take that staircase to the first floor,’ he instructed, ‘and stop at the second door to yer left, you’ll find an office that lies directly above my shop. Look for the door marked “Ballard and Sons”. Constable Pike will be there directly.’

  Alfred nodded, but said nothing. His expression was grim. As he headed for the staircase, pushing past row upon row of dangling carcasses, he didn’t even check to see if Jem and Ned were following him.

  The two boys exchanged glances.

  ‘Who’s Mr Gilfoyle?’ Ned asked Jem in a low voice.

  Jem shrugged. He was feeling guilty, and that made him cross. So did Ned’s question, which seemed to suggest that Jem ought to know who Mr Gilfoyle was. ‘If Josiah Lubbock’s here, it ain’t down to me,’ Jem growled. ‘We never once talked o’ the market, nor Mr Ballard, nor this job.’

  Ned rubbed his nose pensively as Jem set off after Alfred. It wasn’t easy dodging the porters, clerks, puddles of blood and swinging sides of beef, but Jem was nimble enough to thread his way through all these obstacles without once missing a step.

  He caught up with Alfred long before Ned did.

  ‘I never told that slang cove nothing about Smithfield Market,’ Jem assured Alfred, on his way up the stairs. ‘Whatever it is he knows, he must have heard it through yer door yesterday.’

  The bogler grunted. He had barely said a word all morning, perhaps because he’d been awake half the night. Jem had been vaguely conscious, as he tossed and turned, of Alfred’s brooding silhouette hunched by the red embers in the fireplace. And the bogler’s first stop, on their journey to Smithfield, had been the Cock and Magpie Tavern – where he had filled his flask with brandy.

  It wasn’t until he reached Mr Ballard’s office, and saw Josiah Lubbock waiting inside, that Alfred finally found his voice again.

  ‘Damn yer eyes, Lubbock!’ he snarled, advancing across the threshold. From behind him, Jem had a perfect view of Josiah Lubbock’s servile grin – and the startled expression on the stranger hovering nearby.

  Jem decided that this stranger had to be Mr Gilfoyle, and that Mr Gilfoyle had to be a gentleman. It was obvious, somehow. Everything about the man was either expensive or refined, from his shiny shoes to the crown of his glossy top hat. He was perhaps thirty years old, slight and fair, with large, gentle blue eyes and chiselled features. His hands looked delicate even through a layer of grey kid. He smelled good, his collar was snow-white, and there was a diamond pin in his silk cravat.

  I’ll wager this toff has a fat pocketbook, thought Jem, with a pang of regret for wasted opportunities. He’d never seen such a perfect mark; in days gone by he would have thanked his lucky stars for a pigeon like Mr Gilfoyle.

  It made his mouth water to think how much the man’s watch might be worth.

  ‘I don’t know what you told that butcher,’ Alfred was saying, as he thrust his face into Josiah Lubbock’s, ‘but I’m telling you now: you ain’t welcome here.’

  ‘Mr Bunce,’ the showman replied calmly, standing his ground, ‘may I introduce Mr Erasmus Gilfoyle? Mr Gilfoyle is a Fellow of the Linnaean Society of London and has had his work published in half-a-dozen respected scientific journals. He is a naturalist, with an interest in sea-monsters.’

  ‘In alleged sea-monsters,’ Mr Gilfoyle interrupted, looking pained. ‘That is to say, those unclassified marine reptilia described by Philip Henry Gosse as “immense unrecognised creatures of elongate form” that may or may not roam the ocean.’ To Alfred he said, in a soft and very precise voice, ‘Forgive me, sir, but is there some sort of difficulty? I was given to understand that I might view your encounter with a species of carnivore presently unknown to zoological science. Am I mistaken? Or simply misinformed?’

  Alfred opened his mouth, then shut it again. Jem wondered if he’d understood even half of what the naturalist had just said. Jem certainly hadn’t. And Ned also looked confused.

  ‘I would undertake not to interfere in any way,’ Mr Gilfoyle went on, very quietly and earnestly. ‘My intention is to stand by in complete silence, taking notes. Would that disturb you at all?’

  Still Alfred was speechless. Catching sight of Mr Lubbock’s smirk, Jem realised that the showman had cleverly decided to let Mr Gilfoyle do all the talking. For it seemed that, while Alfred didn’t mind saying ‘no’ to a seedy tout like Josiah Lubbock, turning down a polite request made by an educated gentleman was something that the bogler found hard to do.

  ‘If you would care to review any paper I might write as a consequence of this field research—’ Mr Gilfoyle began, but was cut off by the abrupt appearance of two new arrivals. One of them was a uniformed policeman, who seemed to fill the whole office even though he wasn’t very large. He was a stocky young man with a fresh complexion, red lips, and big grey eyes rimmed by a starry fringe of thick, dark lashes. If his expression hadn’t been so blank, and his posture so stiff, he would have looked almost pretty.

  The other new arrival was Birdie McAdam. She wasn’t dressed in her bogling outfit, but instead wore a blue velveteen jacket trimmed with black braid, a matching flounced skirt over two layers of silk petticoat, and a blue satin hat with a black feather in it. Surrounded by the dusty ledgers, smeared glass and battered wooden wainscoting in Mr Ballard’s office, she seemed to sparkle like a diamond.

  Ned’s jaw dropped at the sight of her.

  ‘Mr Ballard told me to bring this girl up here,’ the police constable announced flatly. ‘She’s bin asking for Mr Alfred Bunce.’

  ‘I’m Alfred Bunce.’ Stepping forward, Alfred fixed Birdie with a wary look. ‘What is it?’ he demanded. ‘Where’s Miss Eames?’

  ‘At home,’ Birdie replied. Jem guessed at once that she was a truant. Her defiant voice and elaborate outfit were all the proof he needed.

  ‘Are you on the wag?’ he asked her, with a sly grin. Birdie flushed. ‘And what if I am?’ she retorted. ‘Why should you be the only one to do as you like?’

  By this time Alfred was scowling furiously. ‘You missed yer singing lesson?’ he barked. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Ahem.’ S
uddenly the policeman cleared his throat, putting an end to their conversation. ‘I beg your pardon, Mr Bunce, but I don’t have all day,’ he said, using the dull drone typical of London’s police force. Jem had heard it dozens of times – and had come to the conclusion that bobbies were trained to behave like mechanical men.

  ‘Forgive me, Constable – er . . .’ the naturalist began, then hesitated.

  ‘Pike, sir. Constable Pike,’ said the policeman. ‘And you are . . .?’

  ‘Erasmus Gilfoyle.’

  ‘And I’m Josiah Lubbock,’ the showman weighed in, with a smarmy kind of bow. Jem couldn’t help wondering if he’d had trouble with the police before. ‘Is there a problem, Constable?’

  ‘No, sir, there is not.’ Though the policeman spoke blandly, there was a glint in his eye as he turned from Mr Lubbock to the bogler. ‘Mr Ballard asked me to show Mr Bunce the underground sidings. Am I to understand that you want these people to accompany us, Mr Bunce?’

  ‘Not him, I don’t!’ Alfred pointed at Josiah Lubbock. ‘He ain’t invited!’

  ‘Oh, come now,’ said the showman, appealing to Constable Pike. ‘Can a citizen legally be prohibited from entering the Metropolitan Meat Market?’

  ‘I rather fancy he can, sir, if the railway sidings are his destination,’ was the constable’s view. But as Mr Gilfoyle started to protest, Josiah Lubbock suddenly – and unexpectedly – surrendered.

  ‘It is of no consequence, Mr Gilfoyle. As long as you yourself are present, I shan’t insist on being there. Science must be served, after all.’

  Jem instantly deduced that Josiah Lubbock had already been paid. He was about to ask the showman how much Mr Gilfoyle had actually stumped up when Mr Lubbock continued, ‘Perhaps you’d like me to take Miss McAdam to her singing lesson, Mr Bunce? Since she appears to be unwelcome here . . .’

  ‘No!’ cried Birdie. Wide-eyed with alarm, she turned to Alfred – who promptly rounded on the showman.

  ‘You ain’t to go near this girl,’ Alfred spat. ‘Nor the boys, neither! D’you hear me?’