The Mangle Street Murders Page 10

  There was a loud crack as something burst in the middle of the fire and sparks sprayed high into the night, a shower of intense red stars crackling into the sky, glowing as they fell, floating over the rooftops. Then two men appeared, dragging a third between them. His face was down, but in the flaring lights I saw his head clearly. He had a great shock of red hair. The two men lifted him. His body was limp. They raised him higher and flung him on to the pyre. I bit my glove.

  ‘It is a mannequin,’ Sidney Grice said. ‘They still think there is an Italian murderer on the loose.’

  An elderly couple in evening-wear got out of the carriage in front and hurried away past my window.

  ‘I suggest you do the same,’ my guardian said. ‘You will be quite safe if you go on to Onion Street and you should be able to hail a cab there.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘A gentleman never flees the rabble,’ he told me. ‘They are a pack of dogs and must be subdued or they will rampage through the city and anarchy shall prevail.’

  ‘But—’

  My guardian silenced me with a finger to his lips. ‘And once you have anarchy the whole of society will be teetering on the brink,’ he said, ‘of democracy.’

  ‘But what can you do?’

  ‘Confront them.’ Sidney Grice flung the flap open. He stood and waited to help me alight. ‘Walk briskly but do not run,’ he said. ‘Keep your head up and speak to no one. I shall see you at home.’

  ‘There’s a couple of gentry,’ a woman’s voice called out from the crowd, and half a dozen of them broke away and ran towards us.

  ‘You have money?’

  ‘Yes but—’

  ‘Quickly then, and tell Molly to put the kettle on.’ Sidney Grice turned to face them. ‘Stand back,’ he shouted, his voice high and thin against the roar, ‘or you shall get a taste of my cane.’

  The front runner stopped two feet in front of him. He was a big man with strong bared arms and a face covered in circular tattoos, and he grinned at the little man in front of him.

  ‘Try your twig against this, squire,’ he said, raising an iron bar like a cudgel.

  Sidney Grice darted forwards. He did not try to strike the man with his stick but lunged like a fencer, the tip of his cane catching the man under his chin. The man dropped his bar and clutched his throat.

  ‘You shall all disperse immediately,’ Sidney Grice shouted.

  ‘I know you.’ A wiry man in a long rabbit-skin coat grinned at him toothily. ‘You’re that detective geezer what started all this, getting an innocent man arrested and leaving our women at the mercy of a dago.’

  ‘I shall not warn you again.’ Sidney Grice waved his cane and the man laughed and said, ‘What, a pipsqueak like you?’ Sidney Grice sprang forwards, but the wiry man was ready for him and batted the cane to one side. His fist lashed out and caught my guardian on the temple, and Sidney Grice reeled backwards, his hand to his head. A tall man came from behind and clutched him in a bear hug, and another stepped forwards with a broken bottle.

  ‘Let’s see how clever you are now,’ he said, waving the jagged edge in his face.

  I picked up the bar. It was heavy and I did not want to kill the man with the bottle, so I tapped him just once upon the head. He fell like a dropped doll. I swung the bar at the man who was holding my guardian and caught him on the shoulder. He yelped and let go, but I had only made him angrier. The tall man reached behind himself and brought out a knife. It had a broad straight blade and flashed as he lunged towards me. I raised the bar, but somebody grabbed my wrist and twisted hard. I cried out and the bar clattered on to the road.

  Sidney Grice let his hand drop.

  ‘My eye,’ he screamed, his empty socket black in the firelight. ‘They have cut it out.’

  The thin man opened his hands and said, ‘But how?’

  ‘God help you all now.’ Sidney Grice clutched his face again. ‘It is a hanging offence to put a man’s eye out.’

  The group looked uncertain.

  I put my head down and my hand over my mouth and squawked in my best cockney, ‘Look awt, ’ere come the peelers.’

  The group looked about.

  ‘Where?’ The thin man tried to peer between them.

  The tall man clambered to his feet. ‘Never mind where. Just get out of ’ere.’ They ran back to the main group. ‘Coppers. Scarper.’

  ‘Damned eye fell out and smashed,’ Sidney Grice said, ‘and that was my best one. Come with me, March. This matter is getting out of control. The sooner we get Ashby convicted, the better for everyone.’

  ‘Except him,’ I said.

  Sidney Grice primped his bow tie, brushed down his cape, looked about him and smiled. ‘It was probably your accent that scared them more than anything.’ But then his face fell. ‘But I told you to get away.’

  ‘They could have killed you.’

  Sidney Grice snorted. ‘I had the measure of them.’

  ‘Well, of all the ungrateful—’ I began, but my guardian put his hand to my arm.

  ‘You did well,’ he said. ‘Very well… for a mere girl.’

  19

  The Uses of Gutta-percha

  Sidney Grice was in his study when I found him the next morning, bent low over a steaming copper pan balanced on a tripod over a spirit lamp.

  ‘March.’ He looked up. ‘Do you know what this is?’ He held up a brown stick about the size of my forefinger.

  ‘Gutta-percha,’ I said.

  ‘One of the wonders of the modern age.’ My guardian nodded. ‘Do you know, this substance can be used to make jewellery or furniture and has even been wrapped round the underwater cable which connects us with the lost colonies of America – though why we should wish to communicate with them is a mystery even I could not solve.’

  ‘My father used it sometimes to fill holes in soldiers’ teeth,’ I told him.

  ‘Then you will know that it softens when heated in boiling water.’ He dipped one end into the pan, swirled it around for a minute or so, lifted it out, prodded it and said, ‘That should be soft enough.’ My guardian pulled his left eyelids apart and pushed the stick between them and winced. ‘A little warm perhaps.’ He pulled it out and inspected it. ‘Not too bad. A small air blow but I am sure they can fill that.’

  ‘It will be deformed,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It will still be soft and will have distorted on removal,’ I explained.

  Sidney Grice huffed.

  ‘Nonsense.’ He wrapped the gutta-percha in a roll of cotton wool. ‘I know exactly what I am doing.’

  ‘But you are always having problems with the fit of your false eyes.’

  ‘That is poor workmanship.’ He blew the flame out and put a glass top over the wick. ‘Anyway, I have other things to do.’

  ‘So do I.’

  Neither of us asked or said what.

  Today was Tuesday the fifth of July.

  One thousand and ninety-six days ago in another country in another continent, in what seemed like another world, you came to me. Tall and very smart in your second lieutenant’s uniform. You were unusually quiet and serious, even a little nervous. Was something wrong?

  ‘Oh, I am hopeless at this,’ you said and I knew immediately.

  You went down on one knee and your sword dipped into the white dust and there in the square in full view of the passers-by you brought out a little red cotton pouch.

  ‘I don’t even know which finger.’

  ‘The third on my left hand,’ I said.

  ‘Is that a yes then?’

  I looked into your eyes, the bluest I have ever seen, and they looked back at me with such love that I could not even speak. I nodded.

  ‘I had to guess the size.’

  Your hand trembled as it took mine.

  ‘It fits perfectly.’

  ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘It is beautiful.’

  People were applauding and the band began to play – ‘Lily Bolero
’, I think.

  ‘And so are you.’

  Oh, Edward, you were the beautiful one.

  I held the ring to the sun. It did not glitter but it shone all the brighter for that.

  ‘Shall you be in for lunch?’ my guardian asked so suddenly that I jumped.

  20

  The Name of the Game

  The train was pulling in when I arrived, and windows were dropping for heads to peer through and hands to reach out and twist handles. A slender figure in a blue coat and bonnet was disembarking at the rear of the train and I was hurrying towards it when I heard a voice cry, ‘March,’ and turned to see Harriet Fitzpatrick climbing down two yards behind me.

  ‘I have not fallen on quite such hard times,’ she said and, as the smoke thinned, I saw that I had been approaching a shabby old woman from a third-class carriage.

  Harriet laughed and took my hands and kissed me. ‘Why, March, I should hardly have recognized you from the mouse I left here a month ago. You are quite the fashionable lady now. Clearly London suits you. I assume it is me you have come to meet. Oh, I do love that little coat. We must have a drink together and we must have it now. How is the famous Mr Grice? Run along, porter. I do not need you and shall not tip. All my friends and enemies were simply emerald with envy when I told them I had met his protégée. You must tell me some thrilling stories about him. I am quite exhausted from inventing them.’ All the time she was talking, Harriet had slipped her arm through mine and was propelling me on to the forecourt and through it, back on to the road. ‘Oh fish. The sun is out and I did not think to bring a parasol.’

  ‘Do we need a cab?’

  ‘We can walk it quite easily,’ Harriet said. ‘Where did you get that sumptuous dress and what is that colour called? I am so out of touch, living in the wilds of Warwickshire.’

  ‘It came from a shop on Regent Street that was recommended to me by Mr Grice,’ I said. ‘The lady in the shop described it as dusty rose satin.’

  ‘What a clever name and how it complements your complexion. You do not call him Sidney?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘He is very correct.’

  ‘Then he is either a pompous ass or helplessly in love with you,’ she told me, ‘and, from the way you did not colour when you mentioned him, I should say the former. Oh, how disappointing. I had hoped he would have made you his mistress by now. How I could have entertained my tea-circle with that story. But do not worry, I shall anyway.’

  ‘Really, Harriet,’ I said, but she had suddenly stopped and paled. I took her hand. ‘Whatever is the matter?’

  ‘That is the second lady I have observed today wearing white lace,’ she said. ‘Please tell me it is not the style for I look ghastly in white, as if I have been decked out for my coffin.’

  ‘That is a dreadful thing to say,’ I told her, trying hard to keep a serious face, ‘but no, I do not think it is in fashion.’

  Harriet squeezed my hand and said, ‘Then I am sorely tempted to tell my friends that it is.’

  We crossed the road and turned right.

  ‘Why, this is where I live.’ I indicated up Gower Street. ‘Why do you not come in for tea?’

  Harriet stopped. ‘Is your guardian at home?’ she asked.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Then I shall not,’ she said. ‘I expect he is fat and bald, and I shall be unable to disguise my disappointment.’

  ‘He is not.’

  ‘But I shall still refuse your invitation.’ Harriet pulled me on. ‘Heroes are best imagined. I wish I never met mine every day of my life. So now we must make a little detour to avoid being seen.’

  We carried on to the bottom of Tottenham Court Road and turned up it and then left into Beaumont Place, and along it into Huntley Street and a neat little house with a green-painted door.

  ‘Is this a friend’s house?’ I asked.

  ‘No, but it is a friendly house.’ Harriet tugged the bell. ‘Three quick rings. Remember that if you should come here again.’

  The door was opened a crack and then fully by a slender middle-aged lady in a long red gown. ‘Twinkle.’ She threw out her arms. ‘Come in. I see you have a companion.’

  ‘Violet, this is Eve,’ Harriet said as the lady put out her hand to greet me.

  ‘Any friend of Twinkle’s is welcome here,’ she said and turned back to Harriet. ‘Go through. Nobody else has arrived yet and I have one or two things to attend to, but I am sure you will make yourselves at home.’

  Harriet led the way into a cosy sitting room and sat me on the chintz sofa.

  ‘Why Eve?’ I asked.

  ‘It was the first name that came to my head.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Nobody uses their real names here.’

  Harriet took the stopper off a cut-glass decanter on the sideboard and poured two generous tumblers, handing me one as she sat beside me.

  ‘What sort of a place is this?’

  Harriet laughed. ‘Don’t be alarmed. You have heard of gentlemen’s clubs; well, this is a ladies’ club. We meet. We talk. We dine. It is a sanctuary from men.’ She clinked my glass. ‘And goodness knows we need one. Oh, Bombay, my favourite. Cheerio.’

  ‘But why the secrecy?’ I asked.

  Harriet sipped her drink and said, ‘Can you imagine the unwelcome attention we would get if our existence was made public – the men who would hang about outside – the innuendos? Now, tell me everything. Is your guardian kind to you?’

  I took a large drink. ‘Sidney Grice is not kind to anybody.’

  ‘Does he abuse you?’

  ‘No. He is aloof and cares only for money and his work.’

  ‘Doubtless he is arrogant and overbearing too.’

  ‘Yes, and he does not approve of alcohol.’

  ‘The man is a monster.’

  ‘And he will not let me smoke.’

  ‘You have just described Mr Fitzpatrick perfectly,’ Harriet said, ‘and probably every man you will ever come across. Men are not like us. They are made of stronger but cruder materials.’

  ‘My father was not severe.’

  ‘Then you must miss him dreadfully.’ Harriet put her hand on mine and let it lie there.

  We put our glasses on a low rectangular table covered in red cloth.

  ‘Have you heard of the Ashby case?’ I asked.

  ‘The Whitechapel Wife Killer? Who has not? In Rugby we talk of little else. Yet another triumph for Sidney Grice, it would seem.’

  ‘I believe William Ashby is an innocent man,’ I said, ‘but I do not know what to do.’

  Harriet was silent for a moment.

  ‘The first thing you should do is have another gin and the second is to put your hair up.’

  ‘But what of William Ashby?’

  ‘You cannot help him.’ She took a few loose strands of my hair and placed them behind my ear.

  ‘It is all so horrible,’ I said. ‘I can hardly bear to be in the same room as my guardian, let alone stay in his house.’

  ‘But where would you go and how would you support yourself?’

  ‘I could find somewhere. I can typewrite.’

  Harriet stroked my hand. ‘The gutters are choked with girls who can typewrite.’

  ‘But he will have William Ashby executed.’

  ‘Have you considered that Mr Grice might be right?’ Harriet asked. ‘He is, after all, hugely experienced in these matters. Besides, if William Ashby is innocent, he will surely be acquitted. That is what the judge and jury are for.’

  ‘You do not know how my guardian can distort the truth,’ I said, ‘and William Ashby is such a gentle person. He could never have been so savage.’

  ‘You met him?’

  ‘When he was being interrogated.’

  Harriet went to the sideboard and recharged our glasses.

  ‘If you had seen how wretched he was when his wife died,’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps he was filled with remorse.’

  ‘No,’ I told her. ‘It was in his
eyes. The real murderer is still free. I know it. There must be something I can do.’

  Harriet handed me my glass and sat down close to me.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘We are women. We can do nothing.’

  21

  The Trial

  Monday 23 June is marked in my journal as the start of the twenty-sixth week and the sixth full moon of the year. It was also the first and only day of the trial of William Daniel Ashby.

  The courthouse was full and many disappointed sensation-seekers crowded the halls of the Old Bailey Criminal Courts in hope of news or even catching a glimpse of the man the press had branded a notorious murderer. It was said a space had already been prepared in Madame Tussauds’ Chamber of Horrors and that the museum’s agents were busy in the public gallery making sketches for his effigy. Inspector Pound had reserved seats for Sidney Grice and me in the front row on the left-hand side of the court next to the aisle. Mrs Dillinger sat on the right at the far end of the row, still in mourning, and accompanied by a cherubic priest. She nodded gently to me but did not glance at my companion.

  William Ashby was brought in by two police constables and sat on a bench in the dock, aged and shrunken dreadfully in the few weeks since I had first met him. He was wearing a black suit. ‘They will take his tie away when he goes back to his cell,’ Sidney Grice whispered. ‘Nothing upsets them more than a man making his own noose.’

  William Ashby rose, entered a plea of Not Guilty and sat again. He coughed spasmodically but the judge refused the request of his lawyer, Mr Treadwell, for an adjournment.

  ‘If we postponed hearings every time a convict had a spot of gaol fever we should never get anything done,’ Mr Justice Peters said.

  ‘With all due respect, my lord, my client is not a convict.’

  ‘That remains to be seen.’ The judge waved for him to be seated.

  William Ashby was called first and cut a shambling figure as he hobbled to the witness box. His face was bruised. We learned later that he had had a fall, pushed down a flight of stone steps by a housebreaker. His voice was hoarse and wheezing and he kept having to clear his throat, and his eyes were puffy and red and made him look a little shifty.