by Carol Hedges
“I will not name the noble Lord, but I assure you, gentlemen of the press, there is not a shred of truth in his allegation. Not. A. Shred. And we will fight him in every court in the land to prove it.”
The Author clutches a convenient pillar, her eyes almost starting out of her head with shock and surprise. Colbourne, still not perceiving her presence, continues.
“I intend to republish this wonderful book, and send copies of it to every station bookstall, every library and every bookshop in the kingdom. Let it be read far and wide. Because this is censorship, gentlemen, an attempt to silence a woman novelist, just as they were silenced in the past, or forced to write under an assumed name. We live in more enlightened times, my friends. Just as you are free to publish your articles, so must any writer be free to publish his or her work. Male or female. Am I right?”
The reporters cheer. Colbourne waves the book above his head.
“The lawyers representing the noble Lord hope, by taking this author to court, to set a precedent that will frighten off other writers. If they are allowed to win, how long before the vultures of the legal profession descend upon you? Eh? We are dealing with the freedom of the press, friends. The. Freedom. Of. The. Press. How long before your attempts to set some matter of great import before the general reading public has to pass across the desk of an aristocratic censor?”
“Never!” comes a voice from the crowd.
“How long before you are told that you cannot write about some crime or misdemeanour because it concerns an aristocrat or member of the rich elite?”
“We will always write what the Man in the Street deserves to know!”
“You speak the truth, my friend,” Colbourne agrees. “And now, gentlemen, I must return to work. There is much to do. Write your pieces. Tell the Great British Public how a rich aristocrat is trying to sue a poor impecunious woman writer and let the verdict of the Great British Public upon his deeds and actions ring out across the land. I thank you.”
He bows. The clique of penny-a-liners cheer. Colbourne goes into the building. The reporters go into a huddle. They swap notes, light up cigarettes, then saunter off in the various directions of their newspaper offices to write up the story.
As soon as the street has emptied, Mrs Hemmyng-Stratton advances upon the publishing house. She feels as if she has been subject to some medical procedure that has taken place without either her consent nor any anaesthetic. She barrels into the office, barges past the secretary’s desk and bursts into Colbourne’s inner sanctum, where he is seated behind his desk, feet upon it, and a big cigar in his mouth.
“I have just been standing outside your office, where I have witnessed the most disgraceful display of flagrant audacity,” she exclaims. “You ~ the man I trusted with the precious output of my literary endeavours ~ are intent upon turning my work into some grubby sensationalist story for the newspapers? How dare you!”
Colbourne’s smile is that of a crocodile waiting on a riverbank for an unwary swimmer, who has just stepped into the water.
“No such thing as bad publicity, Mrs S.”
“But I TOLD you I had not based the story on any real events and you SAID you believed me and that once you had written to the lawyers, there would be no further trouble.”
“Ah well, second thoughts on all that, you see, Mrs S. I took on your book in all innocence,” Colbourne says, craftily. “I paid you in good faith. I published it in good faith. How was I to know that you had ~ or had not ~ copied the story from true life? It is up to the author to prove their integrity, not the poor hapless publisher. Now, my business could possibly go under, if my name becomes associated with you. So, at the end of the day, I have to do what I have to do to save it. If you are innocent, Colbourne & Co. makes money. If you are guilty, I will have to pull the book. No more money.”
She stares at him, thunderstruck.
“So, what you are saying is that you intend to profit, one way or another, at the expense of my literary career and reputation? That you are using me for your own sordid pecuniary purposes?”
Colbourne picks up an editing pencil and twirls it. “Something like that.”
“You would throw me to the wolves of public opinion?”
“Got it in one.”
“But what am I supposed to do?” the hapless Author cries, wringing her hands.
“You’d better hope Lord Edwin Lackington changes his mind. Or if he don’t, you’d better come up with some money. Or a good lawyer.”
She rises, stands tall, wrapping the tattered cloak of her broken world around her with as much dignity as she can muster.
“Be assured, whatever the outcome of this disgraceful business, I will never offer Charles Colbourne & Co. another of my precious novels. Ever. You, sir, are no gentleman!”
“Fair enough.”
“I bid you good day, Mr. Colbourne.”
He waves a careless hand, not even bothering to rise from his seat.
Mrs Hemmyng-Stratton totters back out into the bleak uncaring street. She is utterly alone in the world. She has no friend, no helpmeet, neither chick nor child who will come to her aid. And the sharks, oh the sharks are circling!
****
Midday in London marks the traditional dinner hour, and for millions of workers it is a chance to escape from their daily drudgery and snatch a bite to eat. For some, a mug of milk and water and a bun has to suffice ~ Maria Barklem belongs to this group and consumes her meagre meal while standing behind the counter.
She has temporarily turned the shop sign to closed so that she can eat, but the enjoyment of her brief period of rest is offset by the number of small grubby faces pressed to the window, and the poor pinched women with their half-empty baskets who hurry by, hungrily eyeing the delicacies on offer.
Elsewhere, stoop-shouldered City clerks slide inkily from behind their desks and betake themselves to various local eating houses to enjoy a cheap meal, washed down by something inexpensive and barely alcoholic that will not impede them from performing their post prandial task, for to be discovered drunk in charge of a ledger is a sackable offence.
Factory girls, sharp-set and ill-clad, swarm out of their Stratford manufactories at the sound of the dinner bells, heading for the fried fish shops, where their penny buys them a piece of fried fish the size of their palm, and a slice of bread. Some go to the hot soup establishments, to buy a halfpenny basin of thick pea soup, to be eaten standing in the street.
After a hard morning avoiding paperwork, Detective Inspector Stride also heeds the call of the noontide bell and heads for his favourite watering hole: Sally’s Chop House, a dark low-ceilinged place off Fleet Street, presided over by the eponymous Sally, who used to be a prize-fighter with failed criminal inclinations, and has a broken nose and an air of assumed innocence to prove it.
Sally’s customers sit at long wooden tables or inside small wooden booths. There is sawdust on the floor and chips in the chinaware. But Sally’s customers are the sort of people who do not care about such matters, being focused more upon price and portion size.
Stride sits alone in a back booth. He has been coming to Sally’s for so long that the booth he occupies is always free around lunchtime, because the usual crowd of diners recognise an officer of the law when they see one, and do not wish to get too close. Just in case.
He places his order. Then sits staring at nothing in particular, until Sally arrives at the back booth, carrying a plate of steaming beef stew and potato, and a drink. At which point, Stride glances up at him thoughtfully.
“Netsuke,” he says.
“Bless you, Mr. Stride, sir,” Sally says, setting the chipped plate in front of him. “That’s a nasty cold you’ve got there.”
“Have you ever heard of netsuke, Sally?”
Sally frowns and looks off. “No, can’t say I have, Mr. Stride,” he answers, because it is better to deny everything upon principle, in case you end up one day having to deny it upon oath.
Stride conveys food fr
om the plate to his mouth. “Small Japanese carvings of animals, Sally.”
The only animal carvings Sally knows are those that arrive at the back door under cover of darkness. They are generally carried by men in flat-caps and handed over with the assurance that they are not of equine origin.
He nods. Stride eats. Sally hovers deferentially by the booth watching him consume his meal, on the basis that the sooner Stride finishes eating, the sooner he can remove his plate and send him on his way.
“And yet it appears that there are people in England who are willing to pay a small fortune for them,” Stride continues after a pause. “I do not understand why, do you?”
As a provider of dinners, the stupidity of the general public (especially their inability to read a menu board clearly) is a topic Sally could hold forth upon for hours. Ditto their tendency to steal cutlery.
“No idea, Mr. Stride, sir,” he says, shaking his head. “None whatsoever. Bit more potato?”
“No, thank you, Sally. Excellent lunch, as always. I must now return to Scotland Yard. Crime waits for no man, eh?”
Sally pushes the corners of his mouth into a broad, fake grin.
“As you say, Mr. Stride sir. As you say.”
Stride hands over payment for his lunch. Sally thrusts it into a grubby apron pocket. He can almost see the other diners bending sideways to avoid coming into contact with Stride’s aura of law enforcement as he threads his way between the tables.
As Detective Inspector Stride enters the busy thoroughfare, the clanging bells of the city proclaim the hour of one, and all the shopworkers, labourers, navvies, and clerks are summoned back to their toil.
Meanwhile, another individual is also making his way towards Scotland Yard. In response to Jack Cully’s letter, Gerald Daubney, collector of Japanese artefacts, has emerged from his reclusive isolation. He does not wish for his sanctuary to be invaded once more by clumsy members of the Metropolitan Police, so he has chosen to take himself to Scotland Yard instead.
Daubney has not experienced the delights of the city by day for some time. In his heightened state of emotion, the shock of it is almost unbearable. The noise of traffic rumbling through the insufficiently wide streets falls upon his ear like thunder. Coaches, drays, and carts jostle for street-space and lock wheels.
A hundred voices are raised in dispute. Whips are brandished, insults exchanged. Daubney treads cautiously, hugging the inside of the pavement, continually starting back in trepidation as some completely innocent member of the public passes too close to him for his comfort, for who knows what rogues, what villains, pickpockets, thieves and murderers he might be rubbing shoulders with unknowingly?
The usual quotient of street beggars is regarded with horror as they perform their various money-inducing tricks. In Daubney’s over-heated imagination, each one seems to be sizing him up, working out whether his pockets contain anything valuable, or whether he looks the kind of individual whose home might be worth breaking into.
By the time he reaches Scotland Yard, and is directed to wait on the Anxious Bench, he is a quivering mass of nervous energy, the last person to be the first person Stride encounters as he returns from luncheon. Daubney struggles to his feet as Stride enters. The collector’s cheek is hectic. His eyes dart from side to side. His hands shake. He is a human bundle of sensitivity and apprehension.
“Good day, detective,” he says, panting slightly from the effort of rising from the bench. “I have received a communication from one of your colleagues, Detective Sergeant Cully. He has discovered something, I believe, about the theft of my precious netsuke. I have come to find out what it is. Please inform him I am here.”
Stride issues a curt command to the desk-constable to seek out Detective Sergeant Cully at once. He then smiles in what he hopes is a professional manner at the agitated visitor, before heading for the sanctuary of his own office, where he intends to have a brief post-prandial doze on a pile of folders.
But the meeting is not going to take place, for unbeknown to both men, Jack Cully left the building a short while ago on a personal quest. It is his daughter Violet’s birthday, and he has decided to surprise her with a present. It will also be a surprise to Emily his wife, who firmly believes that men cannot possibly be trusted to buy gifts for small girls.
Cully has gone in search of a pink ribbon for Violet’s pretty curls. Luckily, one of the haberdashery shops at the lower end of Regent Street has a good supply. The trouble is that the supply is far too good. Cully finds himself faced with a positive rainbow of ribbons. A superfluity of choice, from which he has to pick just one ribbon.
Deep pink, pale pink, shell pink, apple-blossom pink. Who knew there were so many shades of pink in the world? And so many types of ribbon: silk ribbons, satin ribbons, velvet ribbons. Cully set out a man with a mission, now he is a man with a problem.
Finally, after the saleswoman has pitched him various scenarios, and unrolled numerous ribbons, laying and overlaying them upon the glass counter, he makes his choice. The pink ribbon is rolled and placed in a small box, and Jack Cully emerges from the shop with a new appreciation of the problems facing fashionable female members of society.
Upon his return, he is informed by the desk constable that a certain Mr. Gerald Daubney came inquiring for him, was seen instead by Detective Inspector Stride, and emerged from the meeting a short while after, tight-lipped and unhappy.
Cully does a mental eye-roll. He can imagine the encounter between the two men, one upper-class and a bit odd, the other running on strong black coffee and prejudice. He goes to track Stride down.
“Ah, Jack, there you are,” Stride greets him. “You just missed Mr. Daubney.”
“So I gather.”
Stride shakes his head bemusedly. “Strange man. Very strange. Accusing Scotland Yard of all sorts. Anybody’d think we were the ones who stole his precious little toys.”
Cully pulls a face. “I hope you didn’t refer to them as toys.”
Stride’s expression tells him all he needs to know.
“His manservant is brutally murdered, and the only thing preoccupying Mr. Daubney is where his blessed collection might have gone to. I may not be a ‘collector of Japanese artefacts’, but at least I care about tracking down and arresting the blackguards who killed a man in cold blood,” Stride says, slightly defensively.
“What did you tell him?”
“I said you would write and arrange a further meeting at a mutually convenient time.”
Cully is pretty sure this can be interpreted as sending Daubney off with a flea in his ear. He rises with a sigh.
“I will write to him straight away.”
Stride grunts, then mutters something about the upper classes, snapping fingers, and beck and call. Cully pretends he hasn’t heard. He returns to his own office ~ a crowded room he shares with several other detectives, and dashes off an apology for his absence coupled with a request to visit tomorrow.
He could call round on his way back, but he is not going to. Tomorrow will do. Mr. Daubney and the ivory cat netsuke can wait. Cully knows his priorities. He has a small daughter with a birthday, and the length of pink ribbon that is burning a hole in his coat pocket.
****
Halfway up Ludgate Hill, where the shops are largest and their silk and Indian shawls most precious and tempting to the female eye, is a small gateway. It leads to a labyrinth of streets, courts and small lanes, unpaved and strewn with litter, orange peel and noisy children. Ludgate Hill turns eventually into Fleet Street, ‘the street of ink’.
Here are the printing shops, newspapers, publishers and wholesale booksellers. Here are the all-purpose newspaper offices, and here, wearing her best hat and coat, and carrying a satchel, is Lucy Landseer.
She turns left into a narrow street, skirts round two little girls with hoops, and finally reaches her destination: a small square containing two trees behind an iron railing, some sparrows, and a black painted door with the words ‘Illustrated London Exp
ress’ in bright copper lettering.
This edifying newspaper, published fortnightly, advertises itself as the ‘social conscience’ of the Londoner, claiming to tap into the tone of advanced public opinion. It is known for its illustrations, sometimes erring on the lurid side, as the editor knows that ‘the more blood, the more copies sold’. Lucy has supplied the paper with occasional articles, and on the strength of this, has made an appeal to the editor for help.
It is ten minutes past ten o’clock as Lucy knocks firmly on the door, which is opened by an elderly porter. Lucy states her mission in a firm voice, (she has discovered that firmness is the trick in getting her own way with members of the male sex) and is handed over to a messenger, who leads the way into the interior of the building, along an empty corridor, and down a flight of stairs to the unwindowed basement room containing the shelves of leather-bound back copies of the newspaper.
This is the domain of Armand Malpractis, indexer, archivist, producer, and Keeper of The Catalogue ~ always referred to in hushed tones and capitals. It is widely speculated amongst the journalists, who regard him with bemused perplexity, that when he was child, he probably kept a record of all his toys. In a black ruled notebook. And arranged them in a specific order only known to himself.
If he had a wife (unlikely), she would be labelled Wife: duties domestic. It is also speculated in the newsroom that when he finally departs from this world (Mortal coil: shuffle off), the word Catalogue will be found engraved upon his heart.
Knowing nothing of this, however, and intent only upon her quest to help her new writer friend, Lucy Landseer knocks at the door. Then, head held high, she enters the room and marches (firmly) across to the desk.
She positions herself directly in front of it and waits. Malpractis continues writing something in neat copperplate on an oblong card. He seems totally absorbed in his work. There is a pile of similarly written cards to one side of him. An unwritten pile on the other side.
