The Mangle Street Murders Read online

  ‘Personal detective,’ Sidney Grice muttered.

  All the time the judge was speaking, William Ashby was fighting the spasms in his chest. ‘No,’ he said three times, his sandy hair falling over his eyes, his chest convulsing with infection.

  Had the prisoner anything to say as to why the full penalty of the law should not be exercised upon him?

  William Ashby whispered. ‘I…’ but shook his head and closed his eyes again.

  A terrible silence crept over us as the black cloth was placed upon the judge’s head.

  ‘It is the sentence of this court that you be taken from this place to a place of detention and from thence to a place of execution, where you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead. You should be grateful that your death will be more merciful than that of your wife, and may God have mercy upon your soul.’

  The crowd applauded and William Ashby stood holding the rail of the dock shakily, and a woman cried out, ‘Dear Lord. Please, no.’ It was Mrs Dillinger. She had sat silently until then.

  ‘Grace,’ William Ashby cried back. ‘You know I did not do it.’ And she buried her face in her hands.

  ‘It was an accident,’ Ashby said almost to himself, but my guardian and the inspector heard him and laughed.

  William Ashby was taken away but Sidney Grice hardly glanced at him. He was too busy fiddling with his notebook. The court was clearing, the crowd happily chatting, but we stayed in our seat and Grace Dillinger in hers. She looked lost when she stood at last, like a sleepwalker, as she came up the steps towards the exit.

  ‘So much for your innocent son-in-law,’ Sidney Grice jeered as she drew level, and Grace Dillinger stopped.

  ‘It is an evil thing you have done,’ she said. ‘May you rot in hell.’

  ‘Sweet William will be dancing his way there on the end of a rope long before me,’ he crowed.

  Mrs Dillinger raised her hand and, to my horror, Sidney Grice raised his hand above his head as though to strike back, but in reality to mime a rope round his neck, his head to one side and his tongue extruded.

  ‘For the love of God,’ I said. And Mrs Dillinger cried out, ‘You are a monster!’ as she launched herself into him, grasping his lapel in one hand and lashing out with the other. Sidney Grice moved quickly. He rose and grabbed her flailing arm by the wrist and pushed her with surprising strength away from him. Grace Dillinger stumbled backwards and would have fallen were it not for the priest coming up behind and steadying her.

  Sidney Grice stood alert for another assault, but Grace Dillinger’s face set hard as she turned away and rushed from the courtroom.

  The priest’s voice trembled as he said, ‘If I were not a man of the cloth I should strike and break you like the venomous creature that you are, sir.’

  ‘But we are in the same business, you and I,’ Sidney Grice said, ‘seeking out sinners.’

  ‘I try to save them,’ the priest said.

  ‘Just as I have saved Ashby from murdering again,’ Sidney Grice responded. ‘Go tend to Mrs Dillinger, Father. She has more need of you than I.’

  ‘You have more need of me than you know,’ the priest said, and hurried after her.

  Sidney Grice winced.

  ‘She gouged my face,’ he said, dabbing his cheek with his handkerchief.

  Inspector Pound hurried over. ‘You are lucky she did not take your other eye out.’

  ‘And who would have blamed her?’ I said. ‘The poor woman is carrying her dead husband’s child. She has lost her daughter and is about to lose her son-in-law, and you chose that moment to taunt her. It was cruel and pointless.’

  ‘I have to agree with your young lady on that point.’ Inspector Pound stood aside to let some people past. ‘What on earth came over you, Mr Grice?’

  Sidney Grice smiled.

  ‘My words may have been unkind and I have never claimed to be a kind person,’ he said, ‘but they were certainly not pointless.’

  He inspected his handkerchief which was streaked red.

  ‘It is only a scratch,’ Inspector Pound said.

  ‘A small price to pay then.’ Sidney Grice brightened up. ‘Well, we got the conviction, Inspector. I think you at least owe me a pot of tea.’

  24

  The Maze of Vice

  Time passed quickly. There was a coolness between myself and my guardian after the day of the trial but we saw little of each other anyway, as he was occupied with an alleged suicide in Warren Street.

  I found plenty to occupy myself, however. There were parks and squares to be explored, shop windows to be ogled, cafes where a young lady could sit and take coffee, with perhaps a nip of brandy to colour her cheeks, and watch the metropolis go by.

  It was my guardian’s suggestion that I visited an exhibition of paintings. He had been given a ticket by a grateful client but had neither the time nor the inclination to attend. It might amuse me, he told me one Tuesday over breakfast.

  ‘Run up the green flag when you are ready but do not forget to run it down again. Molly forgot once and the whole of Gower Street became blocked with hansoms, their drivers arguing over who had seen the signal first.’

  ‘I could easily walk there.’

  Sidney Grice raised his eyebrows. His mother, he told me, would never have stepped out of her front door to cross the road if there were not a carriage waiting. It was a question of standards. I walked.

  It was a lovely day and Oxford Street was choked with traffic, hawkers and pedestrians. I stopped to watch a mangy monkey dancing in a red fez and waistcoat on a barrel organ. The music was raucous and the monkey was obviously poorly cared for, and I was just about to leave when I heard a man’s voice very close by shout, ‘Stop!’ I turned and saw Inspector Pound grabbing a ragged little boy by the sleeve, but the boy dropped to the ground, twisting himself free, and scurried off between the legs of the other spectators.

  ‘Stop, thief!’ Inspector Pound shouted after him, but he was gone.

  The inspector bent and picked something up.

  ‘Your purse, Miss Middleton.’ He handed it back to me. ‘The filthy little tyke nearly made off with it.’

  ‘I did not even notice it had gone.’ The purse had been opened but nothing was missing.

  ‘They are professionals, these rascals,’ he told me. ‘They could have your boots off your feet before you knew it but did I not warn you, when we first met, to be careful in London?’

  ‘Of horses, with which I am very familiar, and foreigners, a variety of whom I have lived amongst for much of my life. You said nothing about children.’

  Inspector Pound laughed and his usually sombre face brightened.

  ‘If I were to warn you about every possible peril on the streets of this maze of vice, I should be lecturing you for years. May I take your arm, Miss Middleton?’

  ‘It is nice to be in the company of a gentleman,’ I said as he escorted me out of the crowd.

  ‘My mother was not rich but she taught me my manners.’

  ‘Mr Grice mentioned his mother this morning,’ I said as a mule went by, pulling a wheeled sledge laden with building rubble.

  ‘It is difficult to imagine him having a mother.’ Inspector Pound grinned. ‘But by all accounts he is devoted to her.’ He pulled me back from the edge a little. ‘And she to him, though I gather she never quite recovered from the shame of bringing a cripple into the world.’

  ‘That is not fair,’ I said. ‘He may limp quite badly but he is hardly a cripple.’

  ‘Why, even with his specially cobbled boots his right leg is several inches shorter than the left,’ Inspector Pound said as we crossed the road. ‘Legend has it that, whilst she was carrying him, Mr Grice’s mother was terrified by a lobster falling from a passing fishmonger’s tray into her lap, and lobsters, as you may be aware, have one leg very much longer than the other… It is no laughing matter, Miss Middleton.’

  I put my hand over my mouth. ‘You cannot believe that.’

  ‘I most certainly
do.’ The inspector coloured a little. ‘Why, there is a man by the name of John Merrick who makes a considerable living touring the country in sideshows. His mother was frightened by an escaped elephant whilst carrying him and he was born with a number of its characteristics. His head is enormous and misshapen. His nose forms the beginnings of a trunk. His hands and limbs are swollen and malformed. His skin is thick and lies in great grey folds and he even lumbers like a jungle beast. I have seen him myself and he is no forgery.’

  ‘Well, Mr Grice certainly has a thick shell,’ I said and Inspector Pound laughed.

  We walked round four girls sifting through a pile of rubbish.

  ‘May I enquire where you are heading for?’ Inspector Pound asked.

  I told him and he said, ‘Well, what a coincidence. I am headed there myself.’

  ‘Are you interested in painting?’

  ‘I have never really thought about it, but a friend gave me a ticket and I thought I might take a look. We can cut through here.’ He guided me down a side street. ‘Never come along here at night, Miss Middleton. They call it Cut Throat Alley, but it is as safe as anywhere during the day. I trust Mr Grice’s face is healing well.’ The inspector chuckled. ‘That is the first time I have seen anyone, let alone a woman, get the better of him.’

  ‘Have you known him for very long?’ I asked.

  ‘About five years now.’ A large grey cat came cantering by. ‘He’s a strange one but he does get results. I should probably have let that Ashby fellow go, if it were not for Mr Grice’s help. How did you come under his care?’

  I gave Inspector Pound a brief account of my history and he looked at me seriously and said, ‘Then we have something in common. I lost both my parents before I was twelve years old and I was taken in by my uncle, who was a Robin.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘It is what people called the mounted Bow Street Runners because they wore red waistcoats. It was he who guided me to my career.’

  We walked on in silence and the alley narrowed again so that we were obliged to walk very close unless the inspector let go of my arm, and he showed no sign of doing that.

  The alley widened out into a little square.

  ‘Here we are.’

  The exhibition was disappointing. Mr Rossetti’s women all had small heads and green-tinted faces, large shoulders and necks like pillars.

  The inspector did not stay long. He had work to do but would put me in a cab first. I told him not to trouble himself but he was insistent.

  ‘And what of you?’ he asked as we parted. ‘You are quite a remarkable young lady. There are experienced men in my force who could not enter the mortuary as I hear you did.’

  ‘It is the living who frighten me,’ I said. ‘There is nothing to fear from the dead.’

  ‘Then you shall have nothing to fear from William Ashby soon,’ the inspector said, ‘for he is to hang on Friday.’

  ‘So soon?’

  Inspector Pound shrugged. ‘You have seen some of the unrest for yourself. The sooner he is out of the way, the better. I for one shall not be sorry to see justice being done.’

  ‘You will be there?’

  Inspector Pound smiled and said, ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

  He shut the door and the hansom set off, but I stopped it round the corner and walked.

  There was a jewellery shop set back a little from the road. I stood for a while outside the window.

  I had not had time to hang the ring around my neck. We had twelve patients to deal with and two of them needed amputations. I think it was while I was holding a corporal’s leg down that I cracked the stone.

  ‘Blast the man to hell,’ you said when I showed you. ‘I paid two months’ salary for that ring and it turns out to be a fake and the blighter has disappeared. I am sorry, March. I shall save up to buy you another one.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘This is my engagement ring. Any other, no matter what it cost, would be a fake.’

  You kissed me.

  ‘I did not think that I could love you more,’ you said.

  25

  Sticks and Stones

  It was Thursday. I was in a hurry to get out that morning because I had run out of cigarettes and there is something about tobacco which I find almost addictive.

  ‘March,’ my guardian called as I scooted past his open study door, ‘come and take a look at this.’

  He was standing behind his desk with a top hat in front of him and a sheaf of papers in his hand. ‘What do you make of this?’

  I glanced down. ‘It is a hat.’

  ‘Not just any old hat,’ he said. ‘My hat.’

  ‘Congratulations.’ I was hungry for a smoke.

  ‘What else is it?’ He hopped from one foot to the other.

  ‘A dromedary,’ I guessed.

  ‘Now you are being foolish. This,’ he rotated it, ‘is my latest invention – the Grice Patent Tea-maker.’

  ‘And I thought it was a hat.’

  ‘It is,’ he said, ‘and an excellent one at that. Note the subtly widened rim, designed to keep the sun out of one’s eye in the summer and waxed to keep the rain off one’s nose in the winter. See,’ he flipped the hat upside down, ‘how this black silk lining unbuttons to reveal compartments containing tea leaves, a box of vestas, a spoon, a strainer and a telescopic cup. Observe how this spirit lamp hinges down below the top compartment, a can of water. Everything a gentleman might need for that perfect emergency cup of tea.’

  ‘Will it brew up whilst you are wearing it?’ I asked, and Molly came in with the morning papers on a silver tray. She put it down and bobbed awkwardly.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Sidney Grice demanded.

  ‘Curtsying, sir. Maude who lives in at number 112 told me they do it all the time there.’

  The doorbell rang.

  ‘It makes you look like a jackdaw.’

  Molly grinned. ‘Why, thank you, sir.’

  ‘Door,’ my guardian said and Molly looked blank. ‘Answer the door,’ he said.

  Molly obediently left, then returned, crossing her legs in a jerky dip. ‘Inspector Pound, sir.’

  The inspector muttered a few pleasantries but he was clearly worried.

  ‘You have not read the papers yet, Mr Grice?’

  ‘No. Molly was delayed in ironing them. Apparently cook caught her hair alight.’

  ‘Is she all right?’ I asked and he shrugged.

  ‘I expect luncheon will be delayed.’

  ‘I had a visit from Father Brewster yesterday morning,’ Inspector Pound said.

  The two men sat and I pulled up a chair. Sidney Grice tilted his head quizzically.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He told me that Sir Randolph had called on him the night before.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Sir Randolph had something on his conscience. He made a confession that so disturbed Father Brewster that he persuaded Sir Randolph to repeat the information to him outside of the confession where it would not be sacrosanct.’

  ‘And this information was?’ My guardian made no attempt to cover his yawn.

  Inspector Pound hesitated. ‘He claims that you told him what to say in the witness box and paid him handsomely to do so, including putting him up in the Midlands Grand Hotel.’

  Sidney Grice waved his hand airily. ‘Stuff and nonsense.’

  ‘But you admitted that you coached him,’ I said and my guardian inhaled sharply.

  ‘I merely helped him to organize his testimony,’ he said.

  ‘So you gave him no money?’ I asked and my guardian stiffened.

  ‘I was not aware that I was in the dock.’

  ‘Not yet, at any rate,’ the inspector murmured.

  ‘I bought Sir Randolph a suit and paid for him to have a shave and haircut so that he would be a more presentable witness.’

  ‘And the hotel?’ Inspector Pound asked quietly.

  ‘I put him up there for the night before the trial because I know the concier
ge. He arranged for a man to stay with Sir Randolph and make sure he turned up at court on time and sober. That is all.’

  ‘That is not what the press are saying,’ the inspector said, and I picked up The Times.

  It was still warm and the front page, as always, was taken up by advertisements, but inside there was a grainy photograph of my guardian and another of Father Brewster, and a headline which proclaimed Priest Speaks Out Against Private Detective.

  ‘Let me see.’ My guardian snatched the paper and his face reddened. ‘How many times? I am a personal detective.’ He slapped the paper on to his desk and bent over it. ‘That damned whey-faced puppy in a frock has been using his filthy pulpit to repeat his allegations. I shall go to his church this very Sunday and thrash him before his own congregation.’

  ‘They are more likely to thrash you,’ I said.

  People were shouting on the street.

  ‘I shall sue. I shall have him behind bars for criminal slander.’ He took the paper in both hands and ripped it in two, screwing the halves up and throwing them in the direction of the fire on to the floor.

  ‘Run up the flag, March. I know a couple of characters in Limehouse who owe me a favour. They will set him swimming in the river with his church bell chained to his scrawny neck.’

  The front doorbell rang.

  ‘You are lucky I did not hear any of that,’ the inspector said.

  Molly returned, crossing her legs unsteadily.

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but there’s a small to middling-sized mob in the street outside. They want to see you about William Ashby.’

  ‘Tell them to clear off,’ Sidney Grice said and went to the window to peer out. ‘And bring more tea.’

  ‘They are not the only ones to have concerns about the safety of the conviction,’ Inspector Pound said. ‘I was summoned to the chief constable’s office this morning. He had had a meeting with the Home Secretary and in view of this new evidence…’