A Particular Eye for Villainy: (Inspector Ben Ross 4) (8 page)

Elizabeth Martin Ross

I HAD waited up for Ben to return the previous night for as long as I could. At last, as I kept nodding off in my chair, I went to bed. I found my husband sleeping in the same chair, before a cold fire, in the early morning. After such a disturbed night, it wasn’t surprising Bessie and I lacked enthusiasm for our usual morning tasks. I watched Ben leave, escorting Mrs Jameson and Jenny home. I wondered how he would manage the opening of what might prove to be a difficult investigation when he’d spent most of the night awake.

Bessie, yawning, was despatched to the butcher to ask if there were any mutton chops to be had. I warned her not to linger gossiping about the events of the previous night, and to come straight home again. I set off myself to visit a lacemaker to view the progress of a commission I’d given her, to make collar and cuffs that I hoped would brighten a plain gown. My route took me by the great rail terminus of Waterloo. Here it was always crowded and I knew to watch out for my purse. It was because I was keeping this sharp lookout that, on my return from the lacemaker, I noticed Coalhouse Joey.

It was purest chance. Joey did not want to attract attention. Attention, as far as he was concerned, generally meant trouble. Vagrancy was an offence. But my eye caught the flicker of movement and there he was, scurrying along the street, keeping to the walls, just as any of the rats or stray cats might have done. His small, skinny frame stooped almost double to avoid being spotted by shopkeepers and any forces of the law that might be about. On impulse, I called out his name. I thought he might bolt into the nearest alley and vanish into the maze of courts and lanes beyond, but he hesitated, eyeing me warily.

‘It’s Mrs Ross. You know me, Joey!’ I called again, and beckoned to him.

Bessie would not have approved. ‘You want to keep away from that boy, missus,’ she had told me on numerous occasions. ‘You’ll very likely catch something if you go anywhere near him. He’s got lice and nits and ringworm, and he smells something awful.’

She was right, at least about the smell. I caught a strong whiff of it as Joey sidled towards me. I doubt he’d even been bathed as a baby or troubled to wash himself since; and the resulting layer of grey-brown served as a varnish on his skin. It was hard to imagine how he had survived infancy, or what wretched girl had given him birth. He was a child in both years and in stature; and an old man in experience. His scrawny body was wrapped in a motley collection of filthy rags. His teeth were pointed like an animal’s and a few had been lost. When I’d first become aware that he lived in our neighbourhood, I’d asked Ben if something couldn’t be done for him.

‘Like what?’ asked Ben.

‘Perhaps he could be apprenticed to a trade.’

‘No tradesman would take him on,’ said Ben. ‘Though he’s the right build for going up a chimney.’

At that I held forth at length on the wrongs done to climbing boys. Ben had responded by reminding me he had begun his working life as a trapper in the Derbyshire mines. ‘Crouching for hours in the dark and cold, terrified of rats and of being forgotten at the end of a shift, left down there for ever. But for your father’s generosity, I’d still be down there, digging out the coal.’

‘Then you should be sympathetic to Joey,’ I’d argued. ‘I am sympathetic,’ said Ben. ‘I’ve twice caught him creeping out of our coalhouse and not run him in for breaking and entering. London is full of child vagrants, Lizzie. You can’t adopt them all.’

That is how Joey had acquired his nickname of ‘coalhouse’. It was his habit on cold wet nights to crawl into people’s outhouses, or even into their cellars, his small frame squeezing through narrow gaps or tiny windows. It was a wonder house thieves had not sought to exploit this talent of his. Joey would leave at daybreak and the only sign of his presence might be the smudged print of a child’s hand or of a small foot in the coal dust. He didn’t steal from the properties he visited clandestinely; householders and servant girls would shrug and say, ‘It’s only Coalhouse Joey.’ Perhaps, in time, he would become a figure of folklore, like Will o’ the Wisp, or gain a more sinister reputation as he grew older, like Springheeled Jack. (Ben has told me that from time to time the police still receive reports of a claimed sighting of that strange being!)

I had bought some apples my way back. I took one from my basket and held it out to him. Joey sidled up, with a gleam in his eyes. But, like a feral animal, he wouldn’t take it from my hand. So I set it down on the pavement. Joey darted forward to seize it, then retreated, gripping it tightly. He stared at me from beneath the matted fringe of hair that grew right down to his large dark eyes and muttered his thanks.

‘I haven’t seen you for some days, Joey,’ I said.

‘Old Butcher is after me.’ I was quite surprised to hear him speak up clearly.

‘Constable Butcher?’

‘Yus, but he don’t catch me. He can’t run. He’s too fat.’

‘Well, he might catch you one day, Joey. Why don’t you present yourself at the workhouse? They’ll take you in.’

‘I ain’t going in no work’us.’

‘You’d be fed.’

‘I gets food.’ He held up the apple. ‘Like this. People give me bits of bread sometimes. I goes round the kitchen door of the chophouses and some of the cooks know me. They give me the stuff what comes back from the dining room on the plates, what’s not eaten, you know.’ Joey’s brow creased in wonderment. ‘Folk do send it back, not eaten. A whole potato sometimes, fat off the meat, with the gravy on it . . .’ Joey looked wistful at the memory of these treats. ‘Anyway,’ he added, ‘I don’t need no work’us.’

He squinted at me. ‘There’s been a murder done in your street,’ he said suddenly.

‘Oh, you’ve heard about that, have you, then?’ I asked, surprised.

I realised that some sort of trade was in progress. I’d given him an apple. He wanted to show his gratitude – or ensure future small gifts of food – by offering me something in return.

‘That’s right. His name is, or was, Mr Tapley. Thomas Tapley.’

‘Didn’t know his name,’ said Joey. ‘Only that he went out walking every day, even when it rained. He’d got an old umbrella. He didn’t half look funny with it.’

‘Sadly you won’t see Mr Tapley again, Joey.’

‘Suppose not,’ said Joey carelessly. He tilted his head on one side. ‘I saw his visitor, though.’

I was startled and tried not to show it. But I fancy Joey knew he’d surprised me because he gave a little grin of satisfaction. He had hoped to offer me some information I didn’t already have, in return for the apple, and he’d been successful.

‘When was this, Joey?’

He frowned. ‘I don’t know different days. They’re all the same to me, excepting Sundays when the bells all ring. It was about three or four days, maybe a week, before he got croaked.’

‘Did this visitor come to the house?’

‘And?’ I prompted him impatiently.

‘Then I saw a young fellow come along the street. Not very big, he wasn’t. He had a black coat, with one of them high collars, and a hat pulled down over his ears, so you couldn’t see his face much. But I reckoned he was really young by the style of him and the way he walked, not plodding along like ole Butcher but light as a fevver.’

‘Fevver? Oh,
feather
. . .’

‘That’s wot I said.’ Joey was annoyed by my interruption. ‘You want to know or not? He crossed over to my side – I mean to where my alley was. So I squeezed m’self back in a bit more, into the shadow, and didn’t make no noise. ’Cos I reckoned he was up to something, see? He’d stopped, standing right there just a bit in front of me. I could’ve reached out and touched him. He didn’t know I was there. He just stood looking up at the front of the house. Then ole Mr Tapley, as you call him, he came to the window upstairs and looked out. He saw the young fellow, looking up at him, so he opens the window and leans out. He didn’t call out nothing. He just pointed down at the street door, and put his finger to his lips, like this.’ Joey put a grimy forefinger to his mouth in the traditional sign for silence. ‘So the young fellow crosses back over and stands by the street door. Then it opens and I can see old Tapley himself has opened it – not that red-haired maid. The visitor nips inside and Tapley closes the door real quick and quiet. He was sneaking him in, that’s what. On the quiet, you know? He didn’t want anyone knowing about him.’

It certainly appeared so. Ben would want to hear about this.

‘How long did the visitor stay there, Joey?’

‘Not long. Well, perhaps half an hour. Then Tapley lets him out again and the young chap sets off down the street, real quick.’ Joey gave me a fleeting grin. ‘And I followed him, ’cos I wanted to know where he was going.’

‘And where did he go?’

Now there was no disguising the look of triumph on Joey’s face. ‘That’s the best bit. He marches off, round the corner and down the road towards the river. Then I see a carriage, a closed one and a real smart affair, with a beautiful pair of horses. I like horses,’ added Joey. ‘These was the tops, a matched pair, golden chestnuts with pale yellow manes and tails. Cor, they must have cost a fortune, them horses.’

‘So we’re talking of a private carriage,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘No cabbie ever drove a matched pair like that, nor any old carriage for hire. This carriage was painted all shiny and polished up. The coachmen had a smart coat and a top hat, and all. The young fellow, the one that had visited old Tapley, he jumps up into the carriage and off they go down the street, heading towards the bridge.’

This was a curious and secretive affair, indeed. ‘The visitor never came back, Joey?’

He shook his head. ‘Not as I saw him ever. I never saw that carriage again, neither. I looked out for it because I wanted to see them yellow horses again.’

‘Joey,’ I said earnestly, ‘my husband will want to know about this. It’s a murder investigation and information is very important. Will you come to my house tonight and tell Inspector Ross what you’ve told me?’

But this was asking more than the apple was worth. ‘I don’t speak to no peelers,’ said Joey firmly. ‘Not even the plain-clothes sort like your old man.’

And in a blur of rags, he was gone, slipping away among the crowds like an eel among rocks, and out of sight.

I hurried back to our street and to Mrs Jameson’s house. The locksmith had been and completed his task, as I could see from the scored wood of the door around a new lock. But although I beat the brass knocker loudly several times, I couldn’t summon either Ben or Morris; yet Ben had told me he had intended to take Morris there to help him search poor Tapley’s rooms. I even went down the passage leading into the back yard but the only living things there were Mrs Jameson’s hens, pecking away in their coop. The kitchen door was fastened and peering through the windows rewarded me with nothing more than a view of the kitchen range. Probably the two men had just left, and I’d missed them by minutes.

I put aside my speculations, remembering that Ben would want to hear Joey’s story before he came home that night. There was nothing for it but to take a cab and go to Scotland Yard myself.

It seemed sensible to run to the rank at the nearby railway station, so I hurried there. I was looking for a growler, being alone and knowing that only women of dubious virtue rode around unescorted in a hansom cab. Sure enough, there was one free and waiting for hire. As I approached it the driver, who had been chatting with others of his trade nearby, spotted the approaching fare, detached himself from the group and came towards me. We recognised one another at the same moment.

‘Why, Mr Slater!’ I exclaimed. There was no mistaking his battered ex-prizefighter’s features.

‘Hullo!’ returned the cabbie. His mouth formed a wide grin revealing his broken teeth. ‘It’s Miss Martin, as I stand here. What are you doing running around railway stations? Not looking out for dead bodies, I hope?’ This was, to him, a joke recalling our original meeting at the time of my first arrival in London. He chuckled hoarsely.

‘Well, yes, as it happens, Mr Slater. There has been another murder and I’m anxious to get to Scotland Yard. Oh, and I’m Mrs Ross now and my husband is an inspector in the plain-clothes division of the Yard.’