The Penny Dreadful Curse (17 page)

By the time
the boy returned from the kitchen sink, some toasted crumpets and
steaming hot cocoa awaited him. He ate ravenously, talking with his
mouth full, gulping cocoa when it all got too much and the words
got munched up with the food.

“What can you
tell me?” she prompted.

“Every now and
then Gin-Jim went to Pangosan to get a package to take to Gladhill.
He went early in the day because that was what he was told.”

“Who told him?
Mr Panglossian?”

Melted butter
ran down the boy’s chin and dripped onto his plate as he shook his
head. “Mr Trip.”

“Do you mean
Mr Thrypp?”

He nodded as
he stuffed more crumpet into his pint-size mouth and wiped the
corner of his lip with the back of his hand then licked it
clean.

“How did
Gin-Jim get into the building?”

“He went round
the back where the wagons go. The green door was always left open
for him by the night-watchman.”

“Did he meet
anyone while he was there?”

“It were too
early.”

“How did he
know where to go?”

“Someone
showed it him once and it were always the same.”

“Do you know
who showed him?”

“Mr Trip.”

“Do you know
where he went once he was inside?”

He licked his
fingers and nodded. “I went with him once when he was feeling
poorly. I carried the package for him that time coz he could hardly
walk and had no strength in his arms. We went up the stairs to a
nice room with a desk and a chair and lots of shelves with books
but I could tell it weren’t no bookshop.”

“How could you
tell?”

“The books
were all the same. They were all big and black and all the same
size.”

“Ledgers,”
guessed Mr Corbie, who had decided to join them at the kitchen
table.

The Countess
recalled Mr Thrypp’s outer office with its wall to wall shelving
neatly lined with accounting ledgers. “Where was the package?”

“It were on
the corner of the desk. It were tied with string and it said
Gladhill in big black letters.”

“Could you
read it?”

He shook his
head while his forefinger mopped up the melted butter on his plate.
“Gin-Jim told me that’s what it said. That’s how he knew what
package to take. He couldn’t read neither back then but he knew
what that word looked like.”

This wasn’t as
far-fetched as it sounded to anyone who had observed children in a
schoolroom. She recalled the adorable children of Lady
Wingfield-Coote. They were slow learners and frequently tripped
over words such as: for, from, was, what, when and went, but they
never made a mistake with elephant or crocodile or hippopotamus.
The more complicated the word, the easier it was for poor readers
to recognise.

The Countess
tried to make sense of the fact Gin-Jim, a boy who couldn’t read,
had been entrusted to take a package from a well-known publisher to
a famous writer, and not just the once, but every month, and before
anyone else arrived for work, in other words, before anyone had a
chance to see what the boy was up to. Why use an illiterate boy?
Why keep the task a secret? Why not use Mr Thrypp to deliver the
package? Much safer. No chance of being robbed and killed and
strung up on a meat hook.

“When did
Gin-Jim learn to read?”

“Last
Christmas he started to get good.”

“How long had
Gin-Jim been taking the package from Panglossian to Gladhill?”

The boy
slurped down the last mouthful of cocoa, wiped his mouth with his
grimy sleeve and burped his appreciation while counting on his
fingers – 1, 2, 3. “This Christmas woulda been the third
Christmas.”

“So when he
first started to carry the package to Gladhill he couldn’t read
except for that one word on the package but this year he had become
a good reader,” she summarised, wondering why that fact seemed
important.

The boy went
red because of something she said and dropped his gaze to avoid eye
contact. The Countess suddenly felt close to finding the key and
unlocking the secret door.

“What is it,
Boz? What else changed this year?”

Mr Corbie
intervened, employing a fatherly tone the boy rarely if ever heard
addressed his way. “It’s all right, Boz, you can trust me and you
can trust the Countess. She wants to find out who killed Gin-Jim.
You won’t be in any trouble as long as what you say is true.”

From under
hooded lids the boy looked up warily. His thin lips formed a tight
line as if they had been glued and stitched like the spine of a
book, never to be torn asunder. He had heard platitudes like that
before and usually paid the price in the form of a beating, but
Patch trusted Mr Corbie so maybe he could too. “Promise?”

“Promise,”
echoed the Countess and Mr Corbie in unison.

The boy
sniffed, wiped his runny nose with his sleeve, and sucked back a
breath before blurting, “Gin-Jim stole somefink from Pangosan.”

Now they were
getting somewhere! If the boy had stolen something it could provide
a motive for murder. It’s possible he stole something far more
valuable than he realized. “What did he steal?” The Countess
managed not to sound moralistic, merely curious, and it encouraged
to boy to continue.

“Some books
what he wanted to read.”

“Where did he
find these books?”

“I dunno. He
wouldn’t say. He stole the first one at Christmastime. And then not
long ago he stole another. He said it was risky because there was a
man who watched him from a window sometimes. Anyway, he said he was
going to try and steal another one this week.”

“The man who
sometimes watched him – did he say who he was?”

Boz shook his
head and ran his finger once more around the rim of the plate
before sucking the buttery digit into his mouth.

The Countess
wondered if the night-watchman had seen the boy take something and
then followed him, cornering him in the Shambles. Scared of losing
his job or getting the blame for something going missing, he might
have demanded the manuscript back, struck the boy, and killed him
in anger. He might then have taken the parcel meant for Dicksen as
well.

“One last
thing,” she said, extracting some coins from her purse and pushing
them his way across the pine table, “that piece of paper you chased
after and gave to Patch, did you tear it some more?”

Boz slipped
the money quickly into his pocket before it vanished. “No,” he
said.

“Where on
earth have you been all day?” Dr Watson slated anxiously, leaping
out of the inglenook to confront the Countess the moment she
crossed the threshold of the Mousehole.

Dusk had
turned into darkness. Rain had set in for the night. It was getting
on for five o’clock.

“I have been
busy following up leads,” she returned with careless affability,
ignoring his concern. “Let me freshen up, change for dinner, and I
will tell you all about my day.”

Thirty minutes
later they were cradling glasses of sherry in the inglenook and
talking in hushed tones. The Countess did most of the talking and
the doctor did most of the listening.

“I met Miss
Flyte in the bookshop this morning and decided to befriend her in
the hope of advancing our investigation. I learned that she has
rooms – which by the by resemble a Parisian bordello - on the
Pavement and Mr Dicksen visits her every morning prior to breakfast
for a brief tryst. The other morning he arrived with a package
wrapped in brown paper and when she went to unwrap it he became
angry. She cannot recall exactly what morning it was but it could
well have been the morning of Gin-Jim’s murder and said package
might be the missing package the boy was transporting to
Gladhill.”

“It is not a
crime to retrieve something that belongs to you.”

“It is if you
murder someone in the process of that retrieval.”

“One swallow
does not a summer make; one package among the thousands in this
city does not make him guilty.”

“I concede the
connection is circumstantial and weak.”

His logical
brain felt vindicated. “Please go on.”

“Miss Flyte
and I visited the Minerva and while I was there I realised Miss
Flyte must have given birth to a child since that is where Mr
Dicksen met her before taking her as his mistress. I wondered what
happened to the child. No relevance to our case but it is
interesting nonetheless. I aim to follow it up.”

“I shall never
look at his books in the same light. Please go on.”

“Reverend
Finchley arrived at the Minerva. He performs sham baptisms to give
comfort to the young unmarried mothers. I’m not sure whether I
disapprove or not. Miss Flyte and I went with him to the Holy
Trinity to attend a special memorial mass for the five dead
authoresses. Only two were Catholic so there’s no link there. Mrs
Dicksen was in her usual private box pew, along with Miss Titmarsh
and Sir Marmaduke Mallebisse. According to Miss Flyte, Miss
Titmarsh and Mrs Dicksen are old friends but only see each other at
church because Mr Dicksen does not approve of their friendship. Sir
Marmaduke is not Catholic but felt compelled to attend out of
respect for the dead, and, I suspect, to atone for his family’s
history of religious persecution of Jews. After the service, Mrs
Dicksen met Miss Flyte for the first time and there was no fire and
brimstone. Both women were paragons of
politesse
. Sir
Marmaduke seemed quite taken by the dewy youthful haze of the young
mistress of his friend and offered her a lift home in his brougham.
She seemed quite taken by his manly vigour. I cannot wait for
further developments in that arena,” she warbled impishly.

“I think you
enjoy throwing a cat among the pigeons,” he noted not entirely
disapprovingly. “Your day was indeed a busy one. Go on.”

“Miss Titmarsh
revealed that she saw a man in the Shambles, hurrying from north to
south, the morning Gin-Jim was killed. She could not identify him
but it is interesting that it is the direction Mr Dicksen would
have been taking en route to visiting his mistress.”

“Even if you
can place him in the Shambles at the time of death there is no
motive for him to murder a boy who was delivering a package to his
address, and did so every month.”

“Your argument
is convincing and I have nothing to refute it. But I come to the
end of my day and here it goes from interesting to significant. I
spoke to Boz, the brother of Gin-Jim, and apart from confirming
what we already know, that Gin-Jim took a package from the corner
of Mr Thrypp’s desk each month to Gladhill, Gin-Jim recently stole
some books or manuscripts from Panglossian.”

“Ah, yes, that
is significant. It provides a motive for murder – not for Dicksen
but Panglossian. And a man who can murder a boy can certainly
murder defenceless women. You said the murderer was becoming more
confrontational, more daring, and the gruesome death of the boy
confirms that observation.”

“I know that’s
what I said, but killing the boy doesn’t fit the pattern of the
previous murders. The stolen books or manuscripts provide a ready
motive but what about the other five? Where is the motive for their
murders?”

“It may not
come to light until after he confesses, or until his actual trial.
It may be as simple as covering up illicit liaisons he has grown
tired of. Panglossian may be of the same sordid bent as Dicksen.
They struck me as chummy in some sort of underhand way, two
unconscionable rogues, lewd brothers-in-arms, thick as thieves. And
before you ask, I was not totally idle today. Let me refresh our
glasses and I will tell you what I learned.” He tossed back his
sherry and pushed to his feet.

A few moments
later he returned with glasses refreshed and settled back into the
inglenook with one eye on the door leading to the kitchen where Mr
Hiboux was putting the last gastronomique touches to a Chicken
Marengo.

“This morning
I realized that Inspector Bird and I had not yet spoken to the
bargeman who found body number five tangled in flotsam underneath
his jetty. Inspector Bird is still occupied with the barge
collision which has developed into an ugly feud between rival
bargemen resulting in arson – two barges were set alight last
night. So I took it upon myself to track the man down. He was doing
some unloading out by Castle Mills Bridge and did not offer
anything conclusive but his recollections and impressions may be
important. A week before the murder he remembers seeing a man
crossing the bridge several times on the same evening - crossing,
stopping at the end of the bridge and then re-crossing. The first
time it happened he saw the man stop on the other side, pull out
his pocket-watch, check the time and then quickly retrace his
steps. He assumed the man had suddenly realized he needed to be
elsewhere and so returned the same way he came. But when it
happened the second and then the third time he concluded the man
was timing himself. He was seeing how long it took him to walk from
wherever he had come to the spot on the far side of Skeldergate
Bridge. He thought it odd and it stayed with him. Do you see where
I’m going with this?”

The Countess
was already nodding. “Our man may have been checking how long it
might take to walk from Friargate Theatre to the middle of
Skeldergate Bridge so that he could come from the other side of the
river and meet the victim by chance, so to speak.”

“Exactly, and
the fact he did it again and again could be because a man walks
faster than a woman and has a broader stride. He may not have taken
that into account the first time and needed to re-do it. He wanted
to be fairly accurate about meeting Robbie Redbeard midway on that
bridge so he could throw her over after he’d strangled her so that
the body could not be found for days or weeks or months.”

“That makes
sense. He could have strangled her anywhere, in any street cloaked
in fog and darkness between Friargate and Scarcroft Lane, but he
wanted her body to remain undiscovered for as long as possible and
so he chose the middle of the bridge. There was no room for error
or criminal inexactitude in his plan. Our man is meticulous and his
fifth victim was not chosen at random. Did the bargeman give you a
description?”