by Emily Organ
“Of course.”
The news room door slammed and Mr Sherman strode in.
“Miss Green, where have you got to with the railway bombings story?”
I put down the pile of letters. “I am almost done. The latest from New York is that O’Donovan Rossa is claiming responsibility for the bombs, although Scotland Yard thinks it more likely that it was the independent work of the Clan na Gael Society.”
“That sounds rather typical of O’Donovan Rossa’s ego,” said Mr Sherman. “So your article is finished?”
“Almost.”
He checked his pocket watch. “I need it in one hour.”
“Absolutely.”
“She is refusing to give me anything on the Lizzie Dixie story,” Edgar piped up.
“Is that so?” Mr Sherman eyed me questioningly from beneath his bushy eyebrows.
“There is not much we can go public with at the present time,” I explained.
“There must be something. Have you seen how many letters we are receiving each day on the matter?”
“I have been reading them.”
“Blakely’s dragging his heels,” said Edgar. “The people want a suspect. And they want him captured.”
“Absolutely,” said Mr Sherman, scowling at me as if I were somehow responsible.
“We cannot come up with a convenient suspect just because the public demands it,” I replied. “This is a newspaper and we report on real life. If the people want sensationalist stories, they can read the penny dreadfuls.”
“That doesn’t help me much, does it?” said Edgar. “I’ve been given one of the biggest murder stories we’ve had in London for years and very little to report on it.”
Mr Sherman scowled even more deeply.
“The bombings are another big story,” I said. “Why not give Edgar the Fenian story, Mr Sherman, and I will take Lizzie’s?”
“No, Lizzie’s story is mine,” said Edgar.
“But you are writing about it only with second-hand knowledge,” I said. “You are relying on me to pass on the information.”
“Is that not what we agreed?” said Mr Sherman. “You help the Yard and Edgar does the write-ups.”
“He needs to get out there,” I said. “He needs to meet regularly with Inspector Blakely to discuss the case and he needs to be talking to people.”
“I do talk to people!”
“Talking to other hacks in Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese doesn’t count.” The moment I said this I regretted it, but I couldn’t help feeling angered by Edgar’s laziness.
“That’s enough, Miss Green!” said the editor. “I will not have you casting aspersions on your colleagues. Go and get your story finished. I want it on my desk in thirty minutes’ time.”
“I thought I had an hour?”
“Not any longer. Get on with it. And next time you meet with Inspector Blakely, Edgar must accompany you.”
“Edgar comes with us?” I felt my shoulders slump. The thought of spending any more time with Edgar was horrifying. I had grown accustomed to the dynamic of working alone with James. It wouldn’t be the same with Edgar hanging around. I felt certain he would ruin it all.
Edgar grinned at me and I scowled in return.
Chapter 23
I met Eliza at the British Museum the following morning. She was waiting for me in the portico when I arrived, wearing a smart green woollen jacket over a matching dress.
“Penelope! You look tired. Are you eating enough? There is no excuse not to now that you have a salary again.”
I gave Eliza a weary smile and told her that I was well and eating as I should. She tried to reply but began coughing instead.
“I should have ridden my bicycle here,” she said, thumping her chest. “The smoke and soot on the underground railway seems worse every time. But I took the train to make a statement to those dynamite bombers that they cannot disrupt our daily lives! When were you planning to tell me that you had been blown up? I had to read your report in the newspaper to find it out!”
“There was nothing to tell; I was unharmed.”
“I do worry about the job you are doing.”
“It was nothing to do with my job! I just happened to be on that train.”
“Well I think it is all rather terrifying. I don’t know where the Irish plan to plant their dynamite next. It is quite a worry. We should give them home rule and be done with it.”
I gave my sister a small purse of coins and she looked at it in surprise.
“You do not need to repay me yet.”
“I dislike having debts hanging over my head. I have paid my landlady everything I owe her, so it is right that I pay you now. Thank you for helping me buy a new pair of boots.”
It was the last day we would see our father’s botanical drawings and plant specimens before they were moved to the new natural history department of the British Museum in South Kensington.
Eliza and I climbed the staircase to the upper floor and walked through the galleries of the zoological collection to reach the botanical section. The stuffed animals in the cases lining the Mammalia Salon reminded me of the poor dead creatures in Taylor’s home and I felt a shiver as I thought of the man.
“Have they caught Lizzie Dixie’s murderer yet?” asked Eliza, as if she had read my thoughts.
“No, it is a complicated case.”
“Who do you think did it?”
“I don’t know. I am realising now that more than one person had a motive. There is her husband, but then some of her brothers are Fenians, so there could be a political motive.”
Eliza paused by a case of weasels and ferrets. “Well I do hope you’re being careful. You know how Mother worries. Whatever you do, don’t tell her you were bombed. She would raise an army to drag you back to Derbyshire!”
We walked into the next salon. “Here we are,” she said. “Look, half the room has already been emptied.”
A small man with a wide moustache and kid gloves glanced up at us as he slowly placed some pressed plant specimens into a packing case.
“The Greens?” he asked us.
“I used to be,” replied Eliza. “I’m Billington-Grieg now, but Penelope is a spinster and very much still a Green. Will you be packing my father’s plants and drawings today?”
“I will indeed,” replied the man.
“You will be careful with them, won’t you? They are all we have left.”
Eliza’s voice began to choke and I rested my hand reassuringly on her shoulder. We had never talked in detail about our father’s disappearance. I think we had both reached the conclusion that he was no longer alive, but the thought of admitting that to one another was far too distressing. I had stopped believing that he would return, but I still held a very small measure of hope that one day he might.
“I will be careful, Mrs Billington-Grieg.”
I looked at the arrangement of drawings and pressed orchids in the case.
“If it hadn’t been for Lizzie we should never have seen these,” I said.
Father’s sketchbook had been discovered by the rescue expedition in a hut which he and his guide had used shortly before they vanished. It had contained sketches and watercolours of orchids, and three of the most complete drawings had been removed from the sketchbook and put on display in the museum. They had been roughly drawn in pencil, then washed over with watercolour before my father had added finer details in black ink. Each time I looked at these pictures I imagined him with his sketchbook on his lap, his straw Panama hat on his head and his tongue protruding slightly with concentration as he worked.
“The expedition may not have found your father, but it did find these marvellous drawings of the Scuticaria,” said the man with the wide moustache. “You must be very proud of him.”
“I am,” I replied with a warm sensation in my chest.
I took my leave of Eliza once we had returned to the main entrance of the museum.
“I have to work in the reading room,” I told her, m
indful of a few more paragraphs I needed to write about the railway bombings.
“What about lunch? The Holborn Restaurant offers a wonderful Ladies’ Shopping Menu with the choice of a hot or cold luncheon. Can I not tempt you?”
“I have a deadline.”
“Of course.” Eliza rolled her eyes. “Well you must come to the next meeting of the West London Women’s Society. It is high time that we received some coverage in your newspaper.”
“I would be delighted to. Just let me know the date of the meeting and where it is to be held.”
“We take turns to host and the next meeting will be held at the Colehills’ home. It is a rather marvellous place in Cadogan Square.”
My stomach flipped as I thought of Sebastian’s dramatic breakdown in the conservatory.
“I know it,” I said.
“You have been there?” asked Eliza, deflated that I was not as impressed as she had hoped.
“I have, and Mary Colehill spoke most enthusiastically of you and the society when I dined with her and Sebastian.”
“Did she indeed?” Eliza smiled broadly. “Well that is another thing you have neglected to tell me. A rather flattering thing to hear though. We are meeting on Wednesday at three o’clock and will be joined by a speaker on dress reform.”
Eliza glanced towards the doors of the reading room. “You will find time for lunch, won’t you? You are terribly thin and pale.”
“I will see you at the meeting, Ellie.” I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and hurried away.
Chapter 24
That evening I made myself some cocoa and sat at my writing desk looking out of the window. It was an unusually clear night and I had extinguished my paraffin lamp so that my room was in darkness and I could see the stars in the sky. I could just make out the three twinkling stars of Orion’s Belt; I remembered my father pointing them out to me. On nights such as this, I felt it would be nice to have someone by my side to look at the stars with.
Tiger sat on my desk next to the volumes of The Works of Shakespeare Lizzie had given to me. Lights twinkled from the trains trundling in and out of Moorgate station, and now and again a plume of steam and smoke rose up into the night sky. Here and there I saw lights in windows and I wondered what was happening in those rooms. It would have made sense to draw the curtain across the window as a cold draught was blowing in through the gaps in the frame, but I couldn’t close the curtains against the stars. They twinkled and shone at me and I wondered what secrets lay up there in the night sky.
A sharp rap at the door brought me back to my senses. I turned on my lamp and opened the door to find Mrs Garnett standing there.
“A gentleman is here to see you.” Her lips were pursed tight and the whites of her eyes gleamed in the gloom. “I don’t usually permit gentlemen to enter the house at this hour, but he tells me he is a detective.”
“James?” I heard the panic in my voice and knew that something must be wrong.
“He tells me his name is Inspector Blakely. Perhaps he plans to arrest you!”
I ignored her and went to gather up my jacket, hat, scarf, gloves and handbag.
“Please tell the inspector I will be with him shortly.”
James was waiting in the hallway wearing a dark overcoat and the familiar bowler hat. He looked up and smiled at me as I scurried down the stairs, but his expression quickly became serious again.
Mrs Garnett stood close by, watching with interest.
“I am so sorry to disturb you, Penny. Would you like to come with me to St Thomas’ Hospital? I have a cab waiting outside.”
“What has happened?”
“It’s Annie Taylor. She has been shot.”
“Shot?” My legs almost gave way beneath me and I grabbed the bannister post to steady myself.
“Who’s been shot?” asked Mrs Garnett. “Your sister?”
“No, Mrs Garnett. I shall explain on my return.”
“We must go,” said James.
I followed him out of the house.
“How is she? Who shot her? When?” My heart pounded in my chest.
“We don’t know,” he replied as we stepped out onto the dark street. “But she was shot during this evening’s performance.”
“At the amphitheatre?” I paused for a moment and pictured Annie standing on the back of a horse, cantering around the arena in her flowing pink chiffon and sequins. “She was performing at the time?”
“Yes.”
I pictured Annie falling from the horse like a dead weight. I imagined the screams and the panic the shots would have caused.
“And no one else has been hurt?”
“Not seriously. A few people were injured in the scramble to escape the building, but it is a miracle that no one was seriously hurt or trampled.”
“Poor Annie! How is she?”
“We must go and see.”
I climbed into the dark interior of the cab.
“And no one knows who fired the shots?”
“No yet.”
James climbed in next to me and closed the waist-high doors in front of us. “There was a lot of pandemonium, as you can imagine, and because there were so many people it will be a struggle to locate all the witnesses. But we will do our best. There are officers there from Lambeth L Division as well as the Yard. We need to find out who saw what before people drift off home and we lose our chance to speak to them. Let’s go driver!”
The cab moved off.
“It must be the same person who shot Lizzie, don’t you think?”
“It is certainly possible.”
“Why would anyone want to harm Lizzie and her daughter? I don’t understand it.”
“Neither do I. We cannot be certain that the two shootings are connected.”
“But they have to be, don’t they? What are the chances of them not being?”
The cab trundled along and I noticed that the poor horse in front of us was walking with a slight limp. Most of the shops on Queen Victoria Street were in darkness, but lights were glimmering from the pubs and churches. My face was cold in the night air, so I pulled up my scarf to cover my mouth and nose.
“I cannot understand why we didn’t turn off for Southwark Bridge a few hundred yards back,” said James. “It would have been quicker to take the route south of the river. This cab is taking us the long way round.”
“I feel sorry for the limping horse.”
James turned to me, his face dimly illuminated by the lights from the street. “I suppose our prolonged journey gives me time to update you on another development. Y Division has discovered Lizzie’s home in Highgate.”
I felt my jaw hang open.
“Lizzie’s home?”
“It is little more than two rented rooms at the top of a house on the high street. It is very unassuming; the sort of place you would walk past without giving it a moment’s thought. In fact, I have done just that on a number of occasions.”
My mouth felt dry. “What is inside it? Have you been there? Has Y Division uncovered any clues?”
“Not yet. I plan to visit tomorrow.”
“Was she living with anyone else?”
“No one else has been discovered at the property yet, so she may have been living alone. Y Division is speaking to the landlord.”
“She must have disguised herself to live on a busy high street and not be recognised.”
“She may well have done. But don’t forget that everybody believed she was dead. So even if someone had noticed a resemblance to Lizzie Dixie, they would have given it only a passing thought. Their senses would have told them that there was no chance it was her.”
“I’m pleased the Highgate police have found out where she was living. I believe that will be a big help to us.”
The cab lumbered over Westminster Bridge and I saw the sprawling lights of St Thomas’ Hospital glimmering across the river from the Palace of Westminster. We disembarked outside the enormous hospital on Lambeth Palace Road and walked through the
main gate to the colonnaded entrance.
After making some enquiries, we located Annie’s ward on the third storey.
“She cannot receive visitors at the present time,” said a nurse standing guard at the door of the ward. She wore a high-collared, navy blue dress, a white hat and a long white apron.
“I am a detective and I have to catch the person who injured her,” pleaded James. “I appreciate that she is badly wounded; however, it is of the utmost importance that I find out all she knows so that I can get back out there and find the person who did this. Annie knows me. She knows both of us. We spoke to her just a few days ago because we are investigating her mother’s death. You do know that her mother was Lizzie Dixie?”
I could see that James had convinced the nurse. She nodded solemnly and allowed us to pass. “Just a very short visit, please Inspector.”
The ward was long, with two rows of iron bedsteads. I estimated that there were a dozen or so on either side. Each wall was lined with arched, curtained windows, and a strong, medicinal smell hung in the air. The floor was so clean that it sparkled in the light of several gas lamps hanging from the ceiling on long chains. All the patients were women, and I saw a small huddle of people standing around one of the beds halfway down the ward to our right.
“No gentlemen allowed, please sir.” A nurse planted her hand firmly on James’ chest and pushed him back towards the door.
“But I am a detective!” he remonstrated. “I have just been permitted to enter!”
“Not now, sir. The patient needs to rest. I have already turned away the Lambeth police.”
James looked at me, his eyes urging me to continue towards Annie’s bed. I left him arguing with the nurse and walked on ahead.
Joseph Taylor was easily recognisable at Annie’s bedside with his fox-red hair. Two nurses stood beside him. I felt my pace slow as I thought about how little I wished to speak to him again.
He was a murderer, surely?
Or was he?
I noticed how tenderly he held Annie’s hand as she rested on two plump white pillows. I didn’t know Annie well, and I wasn’t sure that she wanted me there, but it was a relief to see that she was comfortable enough to be sitting up in bed.
