The Fatal Engine

by Harriet Smart

  “What about her?”

  “She’s in a serious condition. She may not have long. In fact, I think you had better come with me to the Infirmary now.”

  “She’s dying?” she said, after a moment.

  “It is possible.”

  She glanced about her, as if trying to decide what to do, and then she nodded.

  “Might I ask what you were doing in this part of town?” he asked as they made their way to the Infirmary.

  “I was visiting a poor woman and her family. I’ve been helping them. She used to be our servant. That is no crime, is it?”

  “No, of course not. What was her name?”

  “Why do you need to know? What can it possibly be to you who she is?”

  They had reached the Infirmary steps now.

  “Because everything you do and say is of interest to me, Miss Roper,” Giles said. “The circumstances surrounding the death of your father have made that so, as has your peculiar manner. Now, I am going to let you go to your sister and make your peace with her, and then you and I are going to talk at some length, and this time you will tell me the truth.”

  He took her into the building and up to Sarah Roper’s room. Jack Edwardes was sitting at her bedside, holding her hand. Seeing Amy, he rose, and offered to yield his place to her, but she shook her head and stood looking down at the bed, from the foot. She began biting at her nails.

  “She’s really dying, then?” she said in a whisper.

  “The doctor says so,” said Jack, and bent over Sarah’s hand and began to cry. Amy continued to gnaw at her nails. At this point Carswell came in and went to check his patient. Jack Edwardes gazed up at him with a desperate expression, and when Carswell shook his head, bent back over his sweetheart’s hand.

  “I’ll let you all alone now. It won’t be long before she’s gone,” said Carswell, going to the door. “The chaplain is coming, if you so wish.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Jack, managing to speak. “Amy?”

  “I suppose...” said Amy at last. “Yes, whatever you like.”

  “It’s what Sarah would want,” said Jack.

  “I was lucky enough to run across her in St Luke’s,” said Giles, when they had left the room.

  “What was she doing there?” said Carswell.

  “She said she was visiting an old servant, but she refused to give me a name. Perhaps Mrs Steele may be able to tell us something further. If this does not loosen her tongue,” he added, gesturing back at the door to Sarah’s room.

  He went directly to Mrs Steele’s. There was a constable on the door of the Roper house, and he was able to confirm when Amy Roper had left that morning and tell him the direction in which she had gone. Mrs Steele was glad to see him and to hear that Amy had been found. She had, of course, received a visit from a constable earlier asking for Amy and informing her of Sarah’s deteriorating condition.

  “I don’t know where she went. That’s why I’ve been so worried. To find her gone and such news – I know those two girls had their differences, but sisters are sisters. Oh Lord, poor Sarah – is it really bad?” she said, sitting down.

  “I’m afraid so,” Giles said.

  “I wish I could go to her but I have my hands full with the children. My husband would mind them usually, but he is so busy today, and the girl we have taken on, well...” She shook her head. “But Amy’s there with her now?”

  “Yes, and Mr Edwardes.”

  “Oh, the poor young man,” she said. “First his father, and now –”

  “You heard about that, Mrs Steele?”

  “Yes, through my husband. He knew him a little – Mr Edwardes senior, that is. My husband is a joiner by trade and he did a few jobs for him now and again. And once he called here to pay him. Mr Steele was out so I took the money. He said he was calling on Mr Roper, now I think about it.”

  “Are you sure?” Giles said.

  “Yes, yes, quite sure,” said Mrs Steele.

  “When was this?”

  “I can tell you exactly. It will be in the book. Shall I find it for you, sir?”

  “That would be helpful,” said Giles.

  She left the room. While he waited, the maidservant came in with a child of about Sandro’s age in her arms, who looked red-cheeked and miserable. Seeing him there, she began to retreat, but Giles called her back.

  “Do you know where Miss Amy went? Who it was she was going to see this morning?”

  “Oh aye, sir, she went to see old Mother Walker.”

  “Walker? Are you sure that is the name?”

  “Aye, because it were Mother Walker told me herself to tell Miss Amy to go and see her.”

  “How do you know this Mother Walker?”

  “She’s neighbour but one to my ma. And she told me to send Miss Amy to her.”

  “Where can I find her?”

  “The court at the back of The Fiddler’s Arms. Second floor landing.”

  “I know the one,” Giles said. “Tell me, did Mother Walker used to work for the Ropers next door?”

  “Aye, she did. That’s how I got this place.”

  “Thank you –?”

  “Jenny,” said the girl.

  At this point, Mrs Steele returned with her account book.

  “What is it now, Jenny?” she said.

  “He wants you, ma’am,” she said, and thrust the child at Mrs Steele.

  Mrs Steele took the child and sighed. The child nestled into his mother’s embrace at once.

  “Teething,” she said to Giles, and with her free hand managed to hand the book to Giles. “It was only last month.”

  It took only a moment to find the entry: five shillings and seven pence from Mr Edward Edwardes received on the 15th November.

  “Thank you, Mrs Steele, that is extremely useful. You can’t remember if he said why he was calling on Mr Roper?”

  “No, sir. That’s all I can tell you.”

  With which Giles set off again for St Luke’s, and Mother Walker’s lodgings. He went by way of the Northern Office where he could change his coat for the shabby old one he kept for such occasions. It was one thing to walk through the streets of the parish in a frock coat, but quite another to enter the dark courts and alleys in clothes that marked a man out as a stranger.

  Usually he would have taken Coxe with him on such an expedition. Instead, he went to find Sergeant Hammond, a promising young man with a great deal of good sense, a keen eye and a powerful physique. Earlier Giles had set him to scouring the reports of the machine breaking of 1820 for more details of the hanged men.

  “Do you fancy some air, Sergeant Hammond?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir, I would,” said Hammond, stretching. “Very much.”

  “Nothing more?” he said, pointing at the open books.

  “Nothing, sir, as far as I have got.”

  “I know it’s dry work but sometimes it can yield riches. In the meantime, it seems that Amy Roper has been visiting a woman called Mother Walker in a court behind The Fiddler’s Arms. I need to talk to her. You had better change your coat.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Hammond was well acquainted with the courts of St Luke’s, having begun as a constable on the beat there, and after a brief consultation with a woman who kept a tiny shop by The Fiddler’s Arms, he was able to lead Giles to the building where Mother Walker lived. They climbed up two flights of an ancient staircase tucked in a cupboard and onto a landing where three low-ceilinged and interconnected rooms served at least half a dozen families as shelter.

  Even though these arrangements were no surprise to Giles (he had, after all, seen his share of army barrack rooms) it still annoyed him that it was considered acceptable. He had always thought that the wretched housing of ordinary soldiers was abominable, and he had taken care that his own police officers should at least have quarters that allowed for some privacy and dignity. Men who married and who were promoted were given a housing allowance, and at the new constabulary headquarters there were m
odel dwellings being constructed to house them. He had heard it suggested that all employers above a certain size should be encouraged to build housing for their workers of adequate standard. It was in effect the model of a great country estate with its tied cottages, expanded to the city. But even then, it would make little difference to the majority of people who came into the city to find what work they could.

  Mother Walker was found in the middle of the three rooms, sitting in the corner on a low chair by the hearth. There was a sense of state and power about her, despite her age and evident fragility, for that was the only chair in the entire place and she wore a decent-looking shawl. She was attended by a skinny but elegant cat who no doubt earnt its saucers of milk by keeping down the rodents. The animal approached him with curiosity and sniffed at Giles’ extended hand before nuzzling it approvingly.

  “Who are you?” said Mother Walker. “What do you want?”

  “We are police officers,” said Giles. “I understand Amy Roper has been to see you.”

  “Who told you that?” she said, frowning.

  “A girl called Jenny who says you got her place for her.”

  “She should have held her tongue,” said Mother Walker.

  “There was no reason for her to do so,” said Giles. “May I sit down?”

  “Do as you like. I don’t care,” she said.

  Giles sat down on a bench placed at a right angle to the fire, aware all the time of the woman’s hostile scrutiny. At the same time, the cat would not desert him, and even hopped on his lap and stretched up its head to better allow Giles to scratch its chin.

  “She doesn’t like strangers usually,” said Mother Walker.

  “She trusts me, ma’am,” said Giles, “and so should you.”

  “Do you know who I am?” she said.

  “I have an idea,” said Giles, “and I can guess why you do not care to talk to me. You see me and my kind as –”

  “Devils!” she exclaimed with sudden passion. “The lot of you. My son –”

  “Was innocent?”

  “As God is my witness he was!” she said, with a flourish of her hand. “And they made him confess. Beat a confession out of him and strung him up! He had nothing to do with it. Nothing!” Her vehemence startled the cat on Giles’ lap and made her jump off. Mrs Walker stretched out and picked her up, cradling her in her arms. “People like you can’t be trusted.”

  “What if I told you I might be able to clear your son’s name?” She looked doubtful. “You see, I have an idea that someone else was responsible, someone who let your son and the others take the blame.”

  “And why would you want to do that?” she said.

  “Because it is a wrong that needs to be righted.”

  “That’s true enough,” she said.

  “I think you can help me,” he said. “I think you know what really happened, but no one at the time asked you, did they?”

  “They wouldn’t have believed me,” she said. “And you won’t now. Besides, what good will it do, digging all that up again?”

  “Justice. And times have changed, Mrs Walker. Now, if you were just to give me your account of what happened, I am sure something could be done.” She shook her head. “Very well. Let’s talk about Amy Roper instead. Tell me how you know her.”

  “I worked there at one time when the girls were little, when Mrs Roper was still alive.”

  “How long were you with them?”

  “Seven years or so. I went there after my boy was hanged.”

  “It must have been difficult finding work after that.” She nodded. “How did you find the place? Did someone help you into it?”

  “Why do you ask that?” she said.

  “That is the usual way these things work, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “So, who found you the place?”

  “Someone Mr Roper knew,” she said after a hesitation.

  “Who was presumably a friend to you?” Giles said. “Was this person someone who helped your son during the trial? I know that many people considered it an injustice and would have been glad to help the victims if they could. Was this such a person?”

  “Might have been,” she said softly, glancing around her. Her reluctance to speak on this subject was interesting, to say the least.

  “Why did you leave the Ropers?”

  “They couldn’t pay me,” she said. “He spent all her money and she had to do for herself.”

  “But you kept in touch with Amy and her sister?”

  “Not really,” she said.

  “So why was Amy here?”

  “That’s none of your business,” she said.

  “I see,” said Giles, wondering now what tack he could take to force her to speak. At the same time, a young man came into the room. He was carrying a quarter loaf of bread.

  “Granny –” he began, and then broke off at the sight of them. “Who’s this?”

  “Police,” she said, at which he turned on his heel and fled back whence he had come.

  Hammond went after him at once, and Giles followed as soon as he could. He got out onto the landing, to find Hammond collaring the young man efficiently at the top of the stairs, despite him putting up some spirited resistance. The quarter loaf was lying on the floor. Giles picked it up and dusted it.

  “I think we should talk elsewhere, Mr Walker,” said Giles. “You’ve obviously got something on your mind.”

  He went and gave the loaf to Mother Walker.

  “Where are you going with him?”

  “We won’t keep him long,” he said. “And if you have anything else you might wish to tell me – and I think you do – I suggest you do so as soon as possible. Silence only rouses our suspicions, you know.”

  She looked up at him with a pained expression, as if debating the point. At the same time, the cat wheeled about Giles’s legs, and then stretched up, demanding more attention.

  “She likes you,” she said, puzzled by it.

  “As I said – she knows who should be trusted.”

  She shook her head at that, and returned her gaze to the fire.

  ~

  Giles and Hammond took Walker back to the Northern Office, and installed him in one of the interview rooms. Left alone, he could be observed through the half-glazed door. He was pacing about, obviously in a state of some consternation.

  “Wonder what he has to say,” said Hammond. “He looks like he’s constructing his tale to me, sir.”

  “Let’s hope it’s flimsy enough to unpick. Where he fits into all this, I’m not quite sure. Of course, it may be another matter entirely he has on his conscience.”

  At this point a constable came up with a message from the Infirmary. It was in Carswell’s hand and informed him that Sarah Roper had died half an hour previously.

  “A wretched conclusion,” he said, handing the note to Hammond.

  “Surely the sister will talk now,” said Hammond, having read it.

  “She may well do, especially if I charge her.”

  “If anyone can get her to admit it, it’s you, sir,” said Hammond.

  “Perhaps we should tackle this fellow first, Hammond,” Giles said, meeting Walker’s gaze for a moment. He looked extremely anxious.

  Giles slipped the bolt and went into the room, followed by Hammond.

  “I can’t,” Walker began. “I can’t –”

  “Sit down, Mr Walker,” said Giles. “Let us take this steadily, shall we?”

  He obeyed, but only after a moment, and sat wringing his hands.

  Giles sat down opposite and said, “There is something making you uneasy. It would be better to be out with it, I think.”

  The young man looked at him now and said, after a long consideration, “Someone has asked me to do something.”

  “What sort of thing?”

  Walker hid his face in his hands.

  “A bad thing,” he said. “And I said I would, but I can’t. The more I think about it, I can’t.
”

  “Because it will get you into trouble?”

  “Because it will get me hanged, and then where will my granny be? She has no one but me, sir! He said he’d look out for her, but he has not done before, or at least not as he should have done, given – given all that happened before, given that my own Pa –”

  “Yes, I know about your father, Mr Walker,” said Giles. “That his death was most likely an injustice.”

  “You know about that?”

  “I know a little,” Giles said. “I was hoping you might tell me more. You see, I think someone else was involved, someone who sent your father to pay for his own wrongdoing, and I wonder now if this person who has approached you is not the same man? Yes?”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” muttered Walker.

  “But this person knew your father?”

  “Aye, I suppose he may have done,” Walker said.

  “So what has he asked you to do?”

  “Break machines,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “At that big place up Hansworth Lane.”

  “Williamson and Collworth?”

  “Aye.” He grimaced. “They have these huge machines that need only a girl to mind a dozen of them. There’ll be no work for men soon enough.”

  “Is that what he told you?”

  “It’s what everyone is saying.”

  “And that breaking machines will help the working man?”

  “Aye. It will show the factory masters that they cannot treat us like dirt. It will sow the seeds of a revolution in this country. It will begin the great struggle that must happen before there can be justice and prosperity for every man.”

  He sounded like a child trying to recall the words of his catechism.

  “And do you believe all that?”

  “I – I don’t know. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. It is like God and Jesus,” he added more quietly. “Sometimes I think there is nothing in all that. Other times –”

  “I see,” said Giles. “Well, whatever the truth of such matters, I can tell you that you have done the right thing in telling me about this plan. It will do you no good to go on with it.”

  “But what happens when he finds I have talked?”

  “We will find a way about it. And the more information you can give me now, the more we can protect you and your grandmother. If you were to give me this man’s name.”