I caught up with Mr. Stoker in the late afternoon, when he returned to his office. I told him of my encounter with Ogoon and my concerns about his implied threat.
“It is indeed a very real threat, Harry,” he said. “As you know, these wooden theatres are highly combustible. It’s a constant worry, believe me. We must alert the staff and keep our eyes open. But unfortunately, there’s nothing more we can do.”
I was kept busy for the rest of the time till the evening performance, though the worry about fire never left me. I found myself checking every dark corner.
* * *
Friday morning saw me riding the light green–colored horse drawn omnibus from Ludgate Hill over Blackfriars Bridge to the south side of the Thames. I walked along Southwark to the corner of Gravel Lane Crescent and then stood and looked about me. There was not a lot of traffic, and I couldn’t imagine a hansom cab, going fast, swinging around the corner and hitting a crossing sweeper, especially in the early hours of the morning. I had a special fondness for crossing sweepers, if only because I had been one myself when I first came to the City. Many newcomers to London start out that way, especially those who, like myself, have no family and little money. I had been but fourteen years of age. Some are as young as ten.
Crossing sweepers are found at all of the main intersections, ready to run out into the road and sweep it clear of dirt, mud, garbage, and horse droppings so that ladies and gentlemen—the ladies especially, with their full skirts—may cross the street in comparative cleanliness. Major crossings, such as at Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square, have gangs of boys and men who stake their claim to the areas, while every large crossing is fought over. On a good day a sweeper can earn a shilling or more in tips. A new broom, which may be needed once a month, costs threepence.
On hotly contested crossings a sweeper may take a chance and dash out between horses in order to stake a claim to the hoped-for tip from the pedestrian. Some boys and girls have been knocked down in that way. But it is almost unheard of for a cab to deliberately run down a sweeper. I felt there was more to this “accident” than met the eye.
A sad-faced girl of about twelve stood leaning on her broom at the curbside. As I approached her, she prepared to run out into the street.
“No! Wait!” I cried. “I’m not crossing. I just want to ask you something.”
She looked wary. “You a bluebottle?” she demanded, dark eyes looking up at me from under a man’s cap pulled down over her auburn hair. She wore fingerless gloves and a too-large boy’s jacket buttoned and pinned over a dirty, checkered dress that hung down to her booted feet.
“No,” I said. “I’m just trying to find out about the boy who got run down here the other morning. Do you know anything about him?”
“Billy White. Why ya wanna know for?”
“It’s important,” I said. I let her see a sixpence in my hand. “What can you tell me about it?”
Her eyes locked onto the coin. “What ya wanna know?”
“How did he come to be run down?”
She shrugged. “’E didn’t get out of the way quick enuff, I’m finkin’.”
“Was he taking chances? Was he running between cabs?”
She wiped her nose on her sleeve, her eyes still on the sixpence. “Nar! Bleedin’ cabbie was a devil. Din’ even slow down. Just ’it poor Billy and took off. Bloody magsman!”
“Was Billy killed?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Nar! But ’e ain’t goin’ nowhere. Busted ’is legs, they says.”
“So the police didn’t come and pick up Billy?”
“Nah. Ain’t never ’ere if’n you needs ’em, is they?”
“Who said that Billy’s legs were broken?” I asked.
“The two old dears wot took ’im in.”
This was indeed news. So the boy had not been killed and had been taken in by two old ladies. If I could speak to him, perhaps I could find out why he had been run down and by whom. There might well be a connection to the headless body left across the road for the rag-and-bone man.
“Where can I find them?” I asked.
The girl looked up and down the road, as if afraid of losing customers. But there was no one looking to cross the street. She stared hard at the sixpence.
“Don’t know!”
I gave her the coin, which she snatched and tucked into a coat pocket.
“There’s another tanner if you can remember,” I coaxed.
She gave me a quick look. “You sure you ain’t no blue?” she asked.
“Certain,” I said, and produced the second sixpence, which I held up in front of her.
She wavered just a moment, her loyalty to her neighbors being weighed against the easy money. “The Cooper sisters,” she said, with another quick glance about her. “Just up the road, corner o’ Lavington Street, ’ouse wif a blue front door.” She snatched the coin from me and hared off across the road to take up a post on the far side.
It took me but a minute to find the blue-doored house. The paint was faded and badly flaking but recognizable from its neighbors. I knocked on the door and waited. There was no response and no sound from inside the house. I knocked again with my cane, twice more, but still no response.
“We don’ wan’ none, whatever it is you’re ’awkin’,” came a voice from behind me.
I turned to find an old woman approaching, pushing a battered perambulator, its inside stuffed with sticks, pieces of wood, and a variety of odds and ends apparently gathered up from the local gutters and scrap heaps. The woman herself would have been tall if she had stood upright, but she was stooped with age. Her hair was a yellowish gray and escaped her cap, sticking out in all directions. Her face was lined and dirty, her nose large and hooked. One eye favored her left shoulder while the other eye looked to the right. It was difficult to know which one to focus on.
“Are you one of the persons who took in Billy White?” I asked.
“’Oo’s Billy White?” she asked.
“I would like to speak with him,” I said.
She mumbled something I didn’t catch and busied herself straightening the various items in the pram.
“I don’t mean him any harm,” I said. “I just want to speak to him.” I flashed yet another sixpence. This was getting really expensive, I thought.
She froze, the left eye latching onto the coin.
“I have heard of how he was run down. I would like to hear from him exactly what happened. I want to find out all the details. I am not a policeman, nor am I connected with them.” I turned the sixpence in my fingers.
She pressed her mouth into a tight line and twisted her head one way and another before nudging the perambulator closer to me. But however much she wanted the coin, she resisted it. I admired her for that.
“Look, I believe that Billy was run down because of something he saw. Perhaps something to do with a bundle of rags being picked up by a rag-and-bone man. Do you know anything about that?”
Again she mumbled something to herself. Then she pushed the perambulator along to the faded blue door and painfully climbed up onto the doorstep, starting to tug on the pram handle. I moved forward and helped her lift it. She stood with one hand resting against the door for a long moment before starting to tap repeatedly on it with her long, soiled fingernails. I don’t know if it was some sort of a signal or just her way of getting the attention of the person in the house, but eventually the blue door was edged open. It revealed another old lady but much shorter and, if possible, skinnier than the first one. Her eyes were firm in her head and immediately locked onto mine. Then she looked back and forth between myself and the taller woman.
The cross-eyed lady pushed the pram to the side and took a loop of string hanging from the handle and dropped it over one of the cast-iron railings, ensuring that the vehicle didn’t roll off the step. Then she pushed into the doorway,
causing the second woman to withdraw. She disappeared inside, leaving the door open. I took it as a signal and followed her inside.
The hallway was dark and dingy, and I followed her through it and into the front parlor. There, lying on a horsehair-stuffed settee, with tufts of stuffing sticking out, was a white-faced young boy, his legs covered by a filthy, once-colorful tartan blanket. On a small occasional table pulled up beside him sat a cracked bowl of grayish-looking gruel and a spoon. I suspected the liquid was cold.
“Are you Billy White?” I asked.
He looked fearfully at the women, his eyes wide.
“It’s all right,” I tried to reassure him. I nodded at the women and gave the sixpence to the taller one. She grasped it, but her eyes—both of them—did not leave my face.
The shorter woman seemed to take her cue from the taller one. No words were spoken, but she cleared bits and pieces off the only chair visible in the room and gestured toward it. I pulled it close to the boy and sat down.
“I need your help, Billy,” I began. “I was wondering about the hansom that ran you down. Was there a reason he did so?”
“I dunno.”
“But it wasn’t just an accident, was it? Did he try to kill you, do you think?”
The boy shrugged.
“What happened immediately before it?” I persisted. “Did you see something? What was going on?”
He shrugged again. “Dunno,” he said. “There was these two men what stopped in this ’ansom and pulled out a big bundle of rags.”
“Two men? Can you describe them?”
“One was real tall. ’E seemed to be the boss, I guess.”
“How was he dressed?” I asked.
Another shrug. “A toff. ’Ad the other one do all the work.”
“Then what happened, Billy?”
“They got back in the ’ansom and was about to drive off when the toff saw me lookin’ at ’em. Nasty piece of work, I thought. I turned away and started sweepin’.”
“Then what?”
“Next fing I knew the ’ansom comes galloping down on me and sends me flyin’. Then it takes orf. Din’ ’alf ’urt, I can tell you. I fink he run over me legs, both of ’em. Wot ’e done that for? Mrs. Cooper says ’as ’ow ’e broke me legs! Wot the bleedin’ ’ell was ’e up to?”
The boy tried to sit up straighter but the effort hurt his legs. He cried out and his face creased in pain.
“’Ere! Enough!” cried the tall woman, and she moved forward, grasping my arm.
“No! No, it’s all right,” I protested. I turned back to the boy. “My guess is that the man didn’t want any witnesses to him dumping that bag of rags.”
“Witnesses?”
“He didn’t want anyone able to tell the police what he looked like,” I explained. “One more thing, Billy. Was this tall man black? Was he dark skinned?”
“Nar!” He shook his head. “I told you, ’e was a toff.”
I felt excited. Could Billy have caught sight of the mastermind behind all the plots against the Guv’nor and the Lyceum?
Chapter Nineteen
Saturday turned out to be one of those bright, sunny days that can leap out at you in the middle of a long, dark winter. There was little warmth in the sun, but its very existence was enough. I noticed that people smiled more than usual and walked with a spring in their step. We all knew that it was only a temporary respite from the general harshness we had experienced in February, but we were determined to make the most of it.
Saturday is a matinee day at the Lyceum, so I knew I would be kept busy with the extra performance. That was good, I thought. Tomorrow, Sunday, I would be seeing Jenny, so this would keep my mind busy and I wouldn’t be counting the minutes. Or would I? I smiled to myself as I walked briskly along Wych Street, swinging my cane and admiring the wood-fronted and gabled Elizabethan buildings. Wych Street was the ancient way leading from the north side of the Strand to Broad Street, St. Giles. Its purlieus to the north consisted of filthy and fetid slums displaying the accumulated dirt and squalor of centuries. But, for now at least, Wych Street and its neighboring Holywell Street were places of fascination and interest. In the centre of Wych Street lies the New Inn. A narrow alleyway leads back from it into the dark and dismal Clare Market.
As I drew level with the New Inn, a four-wheeler rumbled up behind me, its width a tight squeeze between the overhanging buildings. I was surprised to see such a vehicle there. I glanced at it, and as I did so, two ruffians came leaping out of the narrow court from Clare Market and grasped both my arms. My stick and my bowler hat went flying as they ran me toward the growler. A third man had stepped out of the carriage and now held the door open while the two pushed me inside. Then all three jumped in, and with a great lurch, the horses leapt forward and all of us were borne along Wych Street and out onto Broad Street. As we passed St. Clement Danes church, a bag of some coarse material was roughly pulled over my head and a rope or cord was tied about my neck to hold it there. I shouted and demanded to know what was going on, but not a word was spoken by any of the men. I tried to struggle, but the hands holding mine were strong and unyielding.
I soon stopped attempting to break free and instead tried to determine where the carriage was going; with the bag over my head I was quite blind. I was aware of the first two or three turns, but with the lurching of the vehicle and the unevenness of the cobbled streets, I soon lost my bearings. As I relaxed and stopped struggling, so did the tightness of the hands restraining me, though they remained about my wrists. At some point I sensed that the carriage was crossing a bridge, most likely over the Thames, though I couldn’t be certain. The drive was a very long one; it seemed to go on for hours.
In my mind I ran over the possibilities. I discounted a casual kidnapping. Far more likely that this was tied in to the threats of Mr. Ogoon and, presumably, Ralph Bateman. But why were they snatching me away? What use could I be to them? Surely if they were solely interested in harming the Lyceum, they would have taken Mr. Stoker or even—had they dared—the Guv’nor himself. My one regret was that, should they detain me for any length of time, I would miss my assignation with Jenny, something I had been looking forward to all week long. And then it struck me that if I failed to meet with her, she would have no way of knowing what had happened to me and might well think that I had abandoned her. I almost redoubled my efforts to struggle but realized it would be fruitless. I sat and seethed.
It was a very long time later that the carriage slowed. I had been nodding in my seat, the restraining hands no longer grasping mine. As the growler came to a halt, the hands once again clamped onto my arms and I was manhandled out of the carriage to stand on the pavement. I heard a gate creaking as it was being opened, and I was urged forward. Under my feet it felt like paving stones, and then, almost immediately, I was onto grass. The ground was frozen and I was almost thankful for the steadying hands, though I knew my arms would shortly be exhibiting bruises.
There was another creaking, this time I guessed from a door of some kind. I realized I was being pushed into a building. I sensed it to be small and I smelled rotting wood . . . perhaps an old shed? I was roughly pushed down onto a wooden bench, and coarse rope was used to tie me there.
“All right!” I cried. “You have got me here. I’m your prisoner. Now what is it you want? Would somebody please answer me?”
But nobody did. The men went away and I heard the door close and what sounded like a bolt slide across it. All grew quiet and still. I sat for a while gathering my wits about me, and then I began straining at the bindings. They did not give. Whoever had tied me was no stranger to ropes and knots. As my wrists became sore, I desisted. It was very cold in the shed, if shed it was. With the brightness of the day, that morning I had eschewed my heavy topcoat and worn but a light one. Now I was sorry. I wondered how long I would be left there.
It was the matinee day at the
theatre so I knew that I would be missed by noon. What time was it now, I wondered? With the long drive out to wherever we were, I guessed it to be close to midday. That meant that my absence would be noted. Surely Mr. Stoker, if no one else, would guess that something had happened to me? But then, I often got involved in matters that took me away from the theatre, even up to curtain time. The matinee performance started at two of the clock, so I might not yet be missed.
I sat and shivered. If I could only rid my head of the sack or bag or whatever it was, I might glean some sort of clue as to my whereabouts. I tilted my head and rubbed it against my shoulder, hoping to dislodge the bag. It remained firm. I wondered if I could chew my way out, but then almost laughed at the ridiculousness of the thought.
Or was it ridiculous? Not so much to eat through the fabric but at least to dislodge it. I again leaned my head into my shoulder, the better to force the material against my mouth. I got a good mouthful—it tasted vile—and then tried to tug at it. By rotating my head against the pressure of my shoulder, and holding firmly with my teeth, I was eventually rewarded with something giving way. It must have been the cord that had been tied about my neck to hold the bag in place, I realized. Yes, after some more shrugging and tugging, the bottom of the bag was pulled away from whatever encircled it and I found that I could look directly down and see, in a very restricted way, the lower part of my body tied to the wooden bench. I tugged and shrugged some more and was rewarded with a slightly wider view. Working at it for the next many minutes I was eventually able to shrug and tug and bite to the point where I managed to shrug the bag up and off my head. It fluttered to the ground at my feet. I breathed a great sigh of relief.
It was murky in the shed. There were two windows but both had been boarded up. A little light came in through holes and chinks in the boarding of the side walls. In a couple of places whole planks had slipped down out of place, allowing shafts of low light to filter in. It seemed that the early morning bright sunshine had greatly diminished, probably from encroaching clouds.
Cursed in the Act Page 19
