Chapter Thirteen
Inspector Benjamin Ross
CLARRIE BRADY lay in the morgue reserved for bodies pulled from the river, at Wapping. Morris and I stood beside the table on which she lay, together with Daisy who had been brought to identify her friend. A sergeant of the River Police stood by, watching us with a dispassionate eye. He had seen too many girls like Clarrie dragged from the watery embrace of Father Thames.
‘That’s her . . .’ snuffled Daisy. ‘That’s poor Clarrie. Who done that to her, Mr Ross? Was it the Wraith?’
‘That’ was a reference to the cord tied round the dead girl’s neck. It was difficult now to say if she had ever been pretty. Immersion in the river had not helped the ravages of death and of strangulation. The scar where Jed Sparrow had cut her with a broken glass showed up lividly on her swollen face, as did the mole on her forehead. She had very black hair which I guessed was not dyed, as were Daisy’s scarlet tresses. Other than that she was tiny, a broken doll cast out by a thoughtless child.
‘Thank you, Daisy,’ I said, ‘for coming and confirming her identity. I do understand how sad this is for you. I wish I could tell you who killed her; but the truth is, I don’t know. Of course I haven’t forgotten what you told me about the River Wraith. I have him in mind, but perhaps I should be looking for another.’
The day was a cold one. Winter was setting in seriously and here, in this grim, dark room with the water scarcely a stone’s throw away, there was an unwholesome clamminess in the air. Daisy had thrown a blue woollen shawl over her light dress and, with her bright red hair, struck a colourful note, but it jarred. She had been shivering since we entered, I guessed both from the chill and from fear. She pulled the shawl more tightly about her thin shoulders and looked up at me, her eyes bright with unshed tears.
‘What will they do with her now, Mr Ross?’
‘Do with her?’ The question took me by surprise. But Clarrie had been Daisy’s friend and it was natural she should want to know about a funeral. ‘Well, there will be an inquest—’ I began.
She interrupted me. ‘No, I mean, will they give her to the anatomists?’
This also hadn’t occurred to me. Daisy’s question had not been prompted by a wish to attend a burial, but by a fear there wouldn’t be one, or not one in any normal sense of it. I stammered awkwardly, ‘I have no idea, no, I shouldn’t think so . . .’
She grasped my sleeve and peered up at me urgently, the feathers on her hat nodding and making her look like a bedraggled cockerel. ‘Don’t let them give her to the learner doctors, Mr Ross! They do that with bodies of people like us who are poor and ain’t got no one to claim ’em!’
‘Has Clarrie no one who will claim her body? How about her mother?’
‘Oh, she’s long gone!’ said Daisy dismissively. ‘Clarrie was a workhouse brat, like me. We run away together, the two of us. They never got us back. Well, I expect they didn’t look very hard. There are plenty of others in the workhouse. So Clarrie and me, we finished up on the streets making our living the only way we could. We shared our money at first, so that whatever happened, we both ate. But then Jed Sparrow got a hold of her. He’d have liked to get hold of me, too, but I managed to keep clear. I dare say you don’t approve of none of it, Mr Ross, nor your wife. But see, the business has kept me from ever going back into the workhouse. Anyway, Clarrie’s mother wasn’t never married, I shouldn’t think, none of our sort ever is. If the workhouse ever had any record of her name, I expect they’ve long lost it. So if it ain’t a legal relationship they won’t give you the body anyway.’
‘Perhaps Sparrow could claim her?’ I suggested, knowing this was a foolish suggestion.
‘He won’t!’ snapped Daisy. ‘He don’t care and anyway, he’s not legal either, he wasn’t her husband and he won’t pay for any funeral.’ Her grip on my sleeve tightened and desperation entered her face. ‘Oh, Mr Ross, if they cut her up she’ll never be able to rise up at the Last Day!’
I was now completely taken aback. ‘At Judgement Day, Daisy? Whatever made you think of that?’
‘How can she rise up if she’s been chopped up into pieces by the anatomists?’ demanded Daisy wildly. ‘There will be bits of her all over the place! It’s in the Bible. I’ve never read it, but I’ve been told about it. There will be an angel blowing a trumpet and all the dead folk will get up and dance around. But you can’t dance around if your head is in one place and your legs is in another, your insides is pickled in jars and someone’s gone and lost your arms . . . No matter how hard that angel puffs away at his trumpet! That’s how it will be for poor Clarrie, if the learner doctors get at her!’
She was in such real despair at this idea that I said soothingly, ‘I doubt very much the body is in a good enough state to interest the medical schools, Daisy. She has been too long in the water.’
Daisy’s grip on my sleeve slackened. ‘I ’ope so,’ she said sadly. ‘Can you speak to the coroner, Mr Ross? Ask that she’s not chopped up?’
‘I will,’ I promised. ‘But I think it is unlikely it will come to that, as I told you. The bodies for the medical school are required to be fresh.’
Daisy sniffed and rubbed her nose vigorously with the back of her hand before muttering, ‘I’ll be going, then. Thank you for finding her, Mr Ross.You said you would and you did.’ With that, she ran out of the room.
‘I wish I could have found her alive,’ I said, to no one in particular. I glanced at Morris. ‘What was all that talk about Judgement Day, do you think?’
The River Police sergeant, silent until now, answered. ‘The poor are very superstitious, Inspector. It’s not the first time I’ve heard of a lot of distress being caused when an unclaimed body’s been taken to a medical school. It’s because of the fear that somehow the dead person will miss out on the Resurrection, like that girl was saying. A lot of’em believe the body should be left in one piece, you see. It’s no use arguing with them; they’ve got it in their heads. But you are probably right, sir. I don’t think the medical school will want this one.’
Morris, who had been staring down at Clarrie’s body with wordless sympathy, now asked, ‘Think this is the work of the River Wraith, sir?’
‘It’s possible. May we have the cord round her neck cut, Sergeant?’
The River Police man stepped forward and snipped the cord. It came away to reveal the double knot at the back.
‘I will take this with me,’ I said to the man. ‘We have seen this before. This is identical to the cord that strangled Allegra Benedict in Green Park.’
Morris rubbed a forefinger over his moustache and rumbled, ‘Think he killed this girl first? Before Mrs Benedict?’
‘I do,’ I said. ‘Daisy Smith told me no one had seen Clarrie since the Friday morning, before the Saturday of Mrs Benedict’s murder. If the same man killed both women, then possibly he killed Clarrie at some time during Friday. But perhaps he did not kill her until the next day, that same Saturday as the Green Park murder occurred. Our killer will have had the bloodlust up and, after killing Clarrie, went straight on to kill Allegra. That is my reasoning, at any rate.’
‘Why would he kill the poor little scrap?’ asked Morris, nodding at the body. ‘Especially if it is the Wraith. He’d been contenting himself with just frightening the girls before, with putting his hands on their necks. Why go and kill one of ’em? Because this one saw him once? He was wearing his disguise at the time. Anyway, her testimony in a court of law wouldn’t be taken very seriously.’
‘Practice!’ I said tersely. ‘As Mr Dunn said, to kill the first time is difficult, to kill after that becomes easier. He intended to kill Allegra Benedict; but he wanted to know that the method he’d thought of would be easy to operate and effective. So he tried it out on this poor girl, and when that presented no problem tipped her into the river and carried on his way to kill Allegra. He did not, as we first thought possible, come upon Allegra in the fog and mistake her for a prostitute. He set out that day to kill her specifically and there is a reason for it. He is a cold-blooded monster, Morris, without any normal trace of human feeling.’
‘Or mad,’ said the River Police man lugubriously.
‘Not mad enough not to know what he is doing,’ I told him. ‘He planned Allegra’s murder very carefully. Now he has a way that is effective and he has used at least three times, if we include Miss Marchwood. He will not hesitate to use it again. No woman is safe.’
Joshua Fawcett was tracked down to his lodgings in Clapham and brought in for questioning at the Yard that very evening, although he was left sitting in a cell overnight. Dunn thought it might impress on our guest the seriousness of his situation. I said nothing to Lizzie about it when I got home. If we kept him in, the news would get about soon enough; but I didn’t think it would reach my own house this same evening. Soon enough to tell her when we’d charged the fellow – if we did. Dunn was sure an interview or two would elicit all the confession we needed. I was not.
So, early the following day, I found myself at last seated opposite the preacher and saw our man for myself. Sergeant Morris and another officer had carried out the arrest the previous evening. Morris said he had come very quietly. A night in the cells did not appear to have disconcerted him any further. (It occurred to me he probably had earlier acquaintance with the interior of police stations around the country.) On entering the room he gazed about him with mild interest and seated himself uninvited. He had not shaved, but he was still dapper, his linen clean; only his footwear was slightly scuffed. His long hair lay curling on his collar but the diamond stickpin normally glittering in his black necktie was missing. It would have made a handy weapon, and had been taken from him for his own safety – and that of any officer approaching him. But otherwise he looked much as he probably normally did.
Not only did he appear unabashed, his attitude was almost as if he were to interview me.
‘I suppose,’ he said calmly, as I took a chair opposite to him, ‘it is little use my protesting at this outrageous treatment. But I protest anyhow, and I wish it to be put on record.’
‘It will be,’ I said in a tone I hoped let him know he could protest as much as he liked and it would not impress anyone here. Every petty thief and whoremonger, every Jed Sparrow of the world, is quick to protest.
Biddle, seated nearby with paper and pencil, began laboriously to write what I suppose was Fawcett’s protest for the record. Fawcett glanced at him and a slight smile briefly touched his features.
But he was not smiling when he looked back at me. ‘You have no possible reason to do this. In what way can I help you with anything?’
‘I hope you will be able to help us a great deal in our investigation into the murder of Allegra Benedict,’ I told him.
He shook his head, as if bewildered. ‘I am at a loss to follow the process of your mind, Inspector Ross.’
‘You are not going to deny you knew the lady?’
‘No, but I would hardly say I knew her well. I had met her. She attended one or two evening parties at the house of Mrs Jemima Scott, a loyal member of my congregation and a tireless worker in our cause. Miss Isabella Marchwood, another stalwart of our cause, also sadly deceased now, brought her there. Mrs Benedict was, I well recall, a charming woman, either Italian or French I believe. I was naturally distressed to hear of her tragic death, as I was to learn of Miss Marchwood’s. Mrs Scott was also very sorry about it. Anyone with normal feelings would be. A dreadful case!’ He leaned forward slightly. ‘But I cannot help you find the villain responsible.’
Dunn was mistaken in ordering him brought in! I thought to myself furiously. He knows we have nothing on him but speculation. He is prepared to sit there and let me make a fool of myself. But I had to go on with it.
‘We believe that your acquaintance with Mrs Benedict was rather more extensive than you say, Mr Fawcett. Let me ask you a blunt question.’
A sharp look briefly entered his eyes. Lizzie had talked at undue length about their remarkable colour, a sort of bright greenish-blue. To my mind they were very strange, like glass eyes in a doll’s head. But women are impressed by such things, I suppose. At any rate, the sharp flicker was gone almost at once and the irritating serenity returned. I could not help but feel the hackles rising on my neck at the sight of such smugness and struggled to conceal my dislike of him. Not that it mattered. He fully realised how I felt.
‘Ask away, Inspector.’
‘On the Saturday before last, the day of her death – please don’t say you don’t remember it.’ (He had frowned. But I wasn’t about to let him interrupt with some nonsense.) ‘It was exceptionally foggy and the news of the murder was commonplace the next day, Sunday. It meant that Miss Marchwood, the helper you mention, did not attend the temperance meeting. She was Mrs Benedict’s companion. On that Saturday then, had you arranged to meet Mrs Benedict in Green Park? Let us say at around four o’clock?’
‘No.’ The faint smile returned. ‘Why on earth should I? What an extraordinary question.’
I did my best to ignore his complacency but my voice was gruff when I asked, ‘Where were you?’
‘At my lodgings, in Clapham,’ he replied promptly.
‘You seem very sure,’ I pointed out. ‘You gave my question no thought.’
