Dead for a Spell (3 page)

“Well, let's hope you are up to the task,” said Stoker. Before Bellamy could bristle he added, “We need a competent police official to locate a missing young lady. One whom I very much fear is in imminent danger.”

To his credit, Bellamy extracted his thumbs from his pockets and moved briskly past the end of the counter to usher us down a short corridor and into a small office.

“Please be seated, gentlemen.”

We took the two plain wooden chairs in front of the desk, which the inspector sat behind. I glanced about me and noted the inevitable framed portrait of Her Majesty on the wall behind Bellamy together with a decidedly smaller photograph of the police commissioner, Sir Edmund Henderson.

“Now sir,” said the inspector, addressing Stoker and studiously ignoring me. “Who is this young lady? Let us have the full facts. What crime, exactly, was perpetrated upon her?” He flipped open a notebook that lay on the desk. It looked to me to be the same one he had used in his days as a humble sergeant. As he licked the end of his pencil I got the impression that he was overeager to record details of any improprieties that might have been committed.

“The young lady is missing, Sergeant . . .”

“Inspector!”

Stoker merely waved his hand. “As yet we are unaware of any harm done to her, but then that is why we are here.”

“We don't quite under . . .”

“Time is of the essence, man!” snapped my boss. “Every moment that passes increases the possible danger. You must rally your troops—or whatever you have to do—and we must get out after her and find her. I have the strongest feeling that . . .”

“Whoa! Hold on there, sir.” Bellamy held up his hand as though halting traffic. “You have a ‘feeling'? You are unaware of any harm done? You want us to have our men go running off in all directions just on a whim? We don't think so, sir.”

“A whim? A
whim
?” Stoker came to his feet, his face red. “You incompetent fool! You are as stupid as you ever were as
Sergeant
Bellamy! Promotion did not bring brains. Come, Harry!”

He stormed out of the room, leaving Bellamy spluttering. I ran after him.

“S
o what now, Mr. Stoker?”

I studied my boss's serious face as we strode along Whitehall. He had been too angry to stop and signal a cab and had muttered something about “walking it off.”

“I'm giving it thought, Harry,” he said, his head down and his stride diminishing so that I might keep up. “I am positive that our Miss Burton is in very real danger and we need to find her as quickly as possible . . . but how? Where did they take her?”

“Perhaps if we could find the cabbie,” I started to say.

Stoker stopped abruptly, causing a tall, thin, military-looking gentleman striding along behind him to almost lose his footing as he avoided running into Stoker's back. Muttering and glaring at my boss, the colonel—or whatever rank he was—sidestepped neatly and then, dodging around us, slid back into step and continued on along the pavement.

“Well done, Harry. Yes, of course. We have to find that cabbie.”

“There are an awful lot of hansom cabs in the city,” I said. “Talk about your needle in a haystack.”

“But all needles can be traced. Get yourself round to Mrs. Briggs again as quickly as you can. Find out all you can about the hansom that picked up our girl. Did Mrs. Briggs notice anything in particular about the driver? What color was the horse? Anything—
anything
, Harry—that may help you find that needle! Mrs. Briggs is on West Street, is she not? There is a cab rank on the corner of Monmouth and Long Acre. Enquire there. Ask every cabbie you can find.”

I flagged down a passing hansom and jumped in.

“Don't worry about me,” said my boss, waving me off. “I have some leads I will follow up myself. Just find that cab driver and discover where he took Miss Burton. Let us pray we are not too late.”

*   *   *

“G
oodness me, Mr. Rivers! It was dark, you understand? Miss Burton had just returned from the theatre, and you know full well when that turns out.”

“But you did see her get into the cab?”

“Yes. Yes, I did.”

“Think, Mrs. Briggs! Please think. Cast your mind back. Miss Burton's very life may well depend on it! Was there anything, anything at all, that you noticed about the cab or its driver? No matter how small a thing. Anything at all?” I implored.

The old lady pressed her thin lips together and knitted her brow. I waited, holding my breath.

“He was a stocky fellow, the driver,” she said, speaking as the thoughts came to her. I slowly let out my breath, not daring to interrupt her. “Wore a top hat, not like so many of 'em these days as sports a bowler. Oh, and he had near-white sideboards. Bushy muttonchops. Bit old-fashioned now, I suppose. I remember thinking he was getting on a bit to be driving around late at night.”

“Anything about the cab itself, Mrs. Briggs? Or the horse, perhaps?”

“Yes! Yes, of course. As he pulled away the cab passed under that new gaslight they put up last December. We really needed that, I can tell you. Nothing to light the pavement from here to the corner.”

“The horse, Mrs. Briggs?”

“Yes, yes. I was coming to that. A piebald it was. Don't see many of them pulling cabs. Nearly all black or brown. Occasionally dappled gray. Hardly ever see a piebald.”

“Piebald.” I was delighted. A black-and-white horse was certainly distinctive. “Anything else?”

“No. No.” She shook her head. “No. That was it, Mr. Rivers. Does that help?”

“Oh yes! Yes, thank you, Mrs. Briggs. You've been a
great
help!”

She looked pleased and a tiny smile crept onto the thin lips.

I wasted no time in hurrying off to the corner of the street. I turned right and ran the block to the corner of Long Acre.

There was only one hansom at the rank, waiting for a fare. The driver was a thin fellow with a scraggly, drooping mustache stained from food or beer. He wore a brown bowler hat, the side of it boasting a dent.

“Ev'nin', sir,” he said when he spied me. “Where to, guv?”

“Not just yet, thank you,” I said. “I'd just like to ask you a couple of questions.”

He looked anxiously about him. “'Ere! Wot's this then? You a copper? I ain't done nothin'. Wot you want wif me?”

“It's all right,” I assured him. “No problem. I just need some information. I need to locate another cabbie.”

“Wot's wrong wif me, then?”

“No.” I tried to be patient, though I was very much aware of the urgency that Mr. Stoker had placed on the situation. “I'm trying to locate a cabbie who was in this area last night. I wondered if you knew him?” I repeated Mrs. Briggs's description.

“Piebald 'orse, you say?”

I nodded.

“Was it a green cab?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “I assumed it was black, like so many others.”

He nodded, removed his hat, and scratched the top of his head. “Dark green,” he said, carefully replacing the hat. “Looks black at night. They all do.”

I took his word for it. “You do know the cab, though?”

“Ho, yes. Buster Wilkins, that was. 'E's that fond of that old nag of 'is. Too old, really, for this lark . . . both the 'orse and old Buster, if you ask me.” He broke into a fit of coughing, and I waited till he finished.

“Where might I find this Buster?” I asked.

He scratched his head again. I wondered if that activated his thinking.

“'E mostly sticks to the Trafalgar Square to Westminister district, I fink. I'm surprised he was up at West Street. Must 'ave been called for, I reckon.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I believe it was arranged for him to go there.” I had a sudden idea and started to climb into his cab. “Why don't you take me down to that Westminster area? Perhaps you'll be able to spot him for me. There's a half sovereign in it for you if you can help me locate the man.”

He needed no urging. We were soon trotting at a brisk pace around Trafalgar Square and then along Whitehall.

It was an hour later that we spotted our quarry. We had been up and down Whitehall half a dozen times and driven along Victoria Street, Victoria Road, and back along Birdcage Walk. It was as we approached New Palace Yard for the twentieth time—or so it seemed—that my cabbie let out a shout.

“Hellooo there! That's 'im!” He opened the trap and shouted down to me, nearly deafening me. “There's old Buster. Just coming off the bridge. Lor'! 'Oo would 'ave thought it? I didn't know 'e ever went Lambeth side.”

“Can we stop him?” I asked. “I have to question him.”

“You leave it to me, guv. I'll stop the old nag.”

He spun the hansom around in a tight circle, causing cries and shouts, curses and blasphemy. Cutting across a line of traffic going in the opposite direction, he hauled his own horse to a stop only feet in front of the primly trotting piebald as it came off the Westminster Bridge. The other cab's driver—whom I recognized from Mrs. Briggs's description—waved his whip and shouted at my driver, bringing the dark green hansom to a halt half on and half off the pavement.

I jumped out and ran toward the old cabbie in the top hat.

“'Ere! Wot about my fare . . . and the sovereign as you promised?” The driver who had brought me there sounded understandably angry.

“Hold on just a minute,” I shouted over my shoulder. “I'll be right back.”

There was no passenger in the green cab, and I jumped up on the step in order to be closer to this Buster Wilkins.

“I would have stopped, if all you wanted was to change cabs,” said the old man, eyes wide in astonishment. “No need to cause a barney right outside the Palace of Westminister!”

“This is an emergency,” I said, trying to sound official. It wasn't hard to mimic the manner and inflections of Sergeant-now-Inspector Bellamy. I quickly explained to the flustered old man what I needed to know. Where had he taken the young lady he had picked up on West Street late the previous evening? He remembered her quite well.

“Pretty young thing,” he said. “In a white gown. Thought she must be going to some party. Lots of them debitats go running off to 'em, you know. Bit early in the season, though, I thought.”

“Do you remember where you took her?” I asked.

“'Course I do! I'm a cabbie, hain't I? I allus remember me fares.”

“Can you take me there . . . now?”

“Reckon so,” he said. “Mind you, it weren't nothin' like I was hexpectin'. Not 'xactly a fancy house.”

“No matter,” I said. “Wherever it was, I want to go there. Wait just one moment.”

I jumped down and returned to my first cab. I held up two sovereigns. “Here, my good man. The first is for your excellent tracking. The second is for my fare plus a second job I have for you.”

He bit into the sovereigns to be sure they were real and then looked at me all attention.

“Go as fast as you can—without causing any accidents—to the Lyceum Theatre. Ask for Mr. Abraham Stoker and bring him to this address.” I then shouted across to old Buster. “Where is it we are going?”

“Down by the river,” he called back. “It's off the Strand, between Duchy Wharf and Savoy Wharf. A big old warehouse right on the water. Tell 'im to turn down Savoy Street and then make a right on the first wharf.”

“Did you get that?” I asked.

The cabbie nodded.

I was soon in the green cab, behind the piebald as it plodded along Charing Cross and turned onto the Strand. I several times urged Buster Wilkins to make more speed, but it seemed that was more than his old horse was capable of doing. I bided my time, tapping my foot on the floor of the hansom. At this rate, Mr. Stoker would get there before me!

Eventually, after what seemed like an hour or more, though was probably considerably less than that, we turned down a narrow cobblestone lane. I could see ahead of me the masts of a number of ships, together with the red sail of a Thames sailing barge, moving majestically downriver. At the Duchy Wharf we turned and squeezed between large bails stacked ready for moving into one of the many warehouses. Mr. Wilkins brought the cab to a stop outside a dilapidated building that abutted the side of the wharf and that stretched down and out over the water itself. At the opposite end of the wharf the dark shape of Waterloo Bridge towered over everything, stretching off into the mist that rose from the murky waters.

“'Ere we are, guv. Made good time, I reckon.”

I was not about to argue.

“This is where you brought the girl last evening?”

He nodded. “Pretty little thing, all in 'er white gown and all. Wot's going on 'ere, then?”

“Did she go into the building?” I asked, ignoring his question.

“That she did, sir. Broke into a bit of a run, too. Seemed real eager to get in there.”

“Was there anyone to meet her here?”

He shook his head. “Not a bleedin' soul, beggin' yer pardon, sir. I wouldn't 'ave gone in there meself, but she seemed to think as 'ow she was hexpected.”

“I see. Thank you.”

I paid him. He reversed the cab, shook the reins, and the piebald walked slowly away. I made my way up the few wooden steps. Paint peeled from the sides of the building and from the double doors. The wood of the steps felt none too secure, bowing under my slight weight. The entrance was not locked but called for a determined thrust on my part to open just one of the doors.

The inside smelled of damp and rotting timber. Abandoned piles of rope, cast-off clothing, burst bags of unknown ballast; the flotsam of the wharves was scattered about the place. I made my way carefully toward the stairs leading to the upper floors. Outside, seagulls screeched and the occasional steam whistle from a merchantman echoed off the walls. What on earth had Nell Burton been doing in this place? I wondered.

The floor above was slightly better. It looked as though it was used, if only on rare occasions. Like the ground floor, it was divided into a number of rooms along one side, leaving a main open area that ran the full length of the building. None of the rooms had doors, reminding me of my humble office back at the Lyceum. There were one or two tables plus a few chairs in some of the rooms. Two of them contained high accounting desks, drawers hanging out or completely missing where the local mudlarks had ransacked the place. I moved on up the stairs to the top floor.

Here there were no small rooms, just the full open area with the raftered roof above. Suddenly it became clear to me. This was one of the many available buildings along the river used as rehearsal rooms by London's theatrical fraternity. Plenty of space and availability. On the floorboards near the top of the stairs I saw chalk outlines to indicate the placement of scenery and furniture. There were other chalk groupings off to both far ends of the building. A few old chairs were scattered about, and there was an ancient sofa with its horsehair stuffing protruding from a variety of well-worn spots.

So that was it! Nell Burton had been drawn here for a tryout. But for what? She was a member of the Lyceum family and firmly ensconced as a character in
Hamlet
. Had some other theatre taken note of her and enticed her here for an audition of some sort? I pondered. But what talent did she have that would lead to that? In all fairness, there was none of which anyone at the Lyceum had been aware. She was a walk-on; a crowd scene character. Like so many young hopefuls she had little chance of even playing speaking roles in these, her early years. It was true that John Saxon had noticed her, and made mention of her to me a time or two, but I had not seen any extraordinary talent there myself as of yet. Perhaps with some personal coaching and some elocution lessons, but the same could be said of several of the young hopefuls. Besides, John might well have an ulterior motive in trying to advance a pretty young girl and have her beholden to him.

I began wandering around the ill-lit loft, peering into corners, but stopped when it occurred to me that I had not given the ground floor a thorough investigation. I should do this systematically so as not to miss anything, I determined. I started down the stairs again. As I reached the bottom I heard noises outside on the wharf. There were shouts and the sound of wheels. A horse whinnied. I hurried to the door and tugged it open.