Maxim Jakubowski - The Best British Mysteries III

‘She’s been spirited away!’ one of the girls said. Her face was blotchy and tear-stained, her body covered in yellowing bruises. Collins doubted if she was yet sixteen years of age. ‘It’s the Devil’s work!’

‘Bella would never hurt a fly!’ the other girl cried. ‘Someone else has done this! Or something. Killed His Lordship and then kidnapped Bella!’

‘Shut your mouths!’ the brothel-keeper shouted. ‘Bogeymen don’t stab strong fellows to death with scissors. And as for you, Jack Wells, don’t think I’ve finished with you – not by a long chalk!’

‘I told you, she couldn’t have passed me,’ the bald man said mutinously. ‘I never take my eye off the stairs when there are visitors in the house.’

‘Then where did she go? I’ve been by the front door ever since Nellie roused me at five.’

‘You reside on the premises, I suppose?’ Dickens said.

‘In the basement, that’s right. But it would have been impossible for her to get down there. Jack or I would have seen her. And there aren’t any windows she could have climbed through to get out of the building. Besides, her boots were in the cupboard. That’s her only pair. She can’t have got far without her boots!’

‘The fact remains,’ Dickens said, ‘that Bella has vanished. It is as if she never existed. Yet my friend and I have not enjoyed the privileges for which we paid handsomely. May 1 ask for reimbursement of -’

The bald man took a couple of paces toward them and seized Dickens’s collar. ‘So you want your money back, do you? Well, you’ll have to whistle for it!’

‘That’s right!’ the fat woman shouted, as if glad to find a target for her fury that was made of flesh and blood. ‘If you two know what’s good for you, you’ll clear off now like these other lily-livered bastards!’

‘Please assure me,’ Dickens said, rubbing his neck as the bald man released his grip, ‘that there is no question of your summoning the police.’

The fat woman stared at him. ‘Think I was born yesterday? No fear of that, mister. Them peelers would like nothing better than to pin something on me.’

‘But the body -’ Collins began.

‘Jack will find a graveyard for it,’ she interrupted. ‘Don’t you fear.’

‘At the bottom of the Thames, I suppose?’ Dickens said.

The bald watcher scowled at him. ‘You heard what she said. It’s as easy for me to chuck three bodies in the river as one.’

Dickens caught his friend’s eye and nodded toward the stairs. ‘Very well. We will go.’

‘And don’t come back,’ the fat woman said. ‘You’ve brought trouble to this house, you two. Theft and murder. Now, Jack, you see to the body while I get Nellie to help me look for that murderous little bitch.’

Dickens hurried down the stairs, with Collins close behind. As they reached the ground, they heard the brothel-keeper calling Nellie’s name, but Collins could not see the maid in the parlour. He presumed that she was in the front room, where the red candle burned. Dickens caught hold of his wrist and manhandled him down the passageway and out into the fog.

An hour later the two friends were ensconced in the more congenial and familiar surroundings of the Ship and Turtle in the heart of the City. Exhausted on their arrival after racing from Greenwich, they had quaffed a couple of glasses of ale to calm their nerves with scarcely a word of conversation.

An extraordinary evening,’ Collins said at length. ‘Expensive, too.’

Dickens shrugged, his expression shorn of emotion. So energetic by nature, he seemed in an uncharacteristically reflective mood. ‘For the Honourable Thaddeus Whiteacre, undoubtedly.’

‘Well, I realise you are a man of means, old fellow, but you must be bitter at having spent so much for so little reward.’

‘Oh, I’m not so sure about that, Wilkie.’

Collins stared at his friend. ‘I really think that it is time that you were frank with me. Your behaviour tonight has been most extraordinary. I thought that we were out for a little innocent amusement…’

‘I agree that what happened was neither innocent nor amusing.’

‘…and instead we ended up running through a peasouper, fleeing from a madam’s hired ruffian. Even since we’ve arrived here, you’ve spent most of the time staring into space, as if trying to unravel the most ticklish conundrum.’

‘In which endeavour I believe I have succeeded. You are right, Wilkie. I do owe you an explanation. But first – let us have another drink.’

‘You almost sound as if you are celebrating a glorious triumph,’ Collins grumbled as a waiter replenished their glasses.

‘In a sense,’ Dickens said calmly, ‘I am. Your health, dear Wilkie!’

‘But we have been present at the scene of a brutal slaying!’ Collins protested. ‘What is worse, the circumstances are such that we cannot inform the police. I might be a young nobody, but you are Dickens the Inimitable, the most famous writer in England. Not even your friendship with Inspector Field could save you from disgrace if the truth came out. He could not hush up your presence at the scene of the crime, even if he wished to do so. The author who patronised a house of ill repute on the night of a murder – how the scandal sheets would love that story!’

‘True, true.’

‘You have not yet told me how you became acquainted with Bella,’ Collins grumbled.

‘Forgive me, Wilkie,’ Dickens said. ‘Undoubtedly you deserve an explanation for the night’s events.’

‘In so far as you can explain the inexplicable.’

‘Oh, I shall do my best,’ Dickens said, with an impish smile. ‘I met Bella one night when my nocturnal ramblings took me to that God-forsaken tavern the Rope and Anchor. I was sitting just where you and I sat this evening. Looking round, I noticed a young woman in the company of Jack Wells, whom you met this evening. Her profession was apparent from her dress, if not from her demeanour, yet I was struck by her quite astonishing beauty. She is no more than seventeen, Wilkie, but her face and figure were as fine as any I have seen in a long time. More than that, there was an innocence and purity about her that I found mesmerising. It was as if, by some miracle, she had yet to be tainted by her profession. But it was plain that she was in the depths of misery, above all that she was in mortal fear of her brutish companion. I surmised that she was a dress lodger and that the madam of the house where she plied her trade had instructed Wells to keep an eye on her.’

‘That is the way these people run their business, is it not? A watcher dogs the dress lodger’s footsteps to make sure that she does not run away from the brothel.’

‘Exactly. As I studied the girl, I found myself speculating about her history, imagining the sequence of events that had reduced her to such dire straits. It can happen easily enough, you know.’ A dreamy look came into Dickens’s eyes. Collins had seen the same expression when he acted before the Queen at Devonshire House, throwing himself body and soul into his part, so that any deficiencies in thespian talent were amply compensated by the intensity of his imaginative investment in his performance. ‘A young woman, perhaps an orphan, becomes destitute and is “rescued” by an apparently kind-hearted older lady. She is offered salvation in the form of board and lodging, only to learn – too late! – that the price is higher than she can afford. Possibly she is accused of a petty theft – a put-up job, with the threat of criminal prosecution supposedly bought off by the bribing of a bogus police officer. By whatever means, the madam ensures that the victim stays deeply in her debt. The poor wretch must repay by selling the only wares that she possesses. Oh, yes, Wilkie, there are female slaves in plantations across the ocean that enjoy liberty for which a dress lodger in a mean London brothel can only offer up hopeless prayers!’