David Dickinson: Death and the Jubilee

Once more the Commissioner reached down to the mass of papers on his desk. ‘This is what the medical men who have examined the body have to say. All the usual disclaimers, of course, three paragraphs of them. Why can’t these people ever tell you anything straight?’

He frowned as he read through the circumspection of the medical profession.

‘They believe the man was between seventy-five and eighty years old, though they could, of course, be wrong. They believe he may have been killed by a bullet wound to the head, though as we have no head, they may be right in their caution on that score. They believe he had been dead for a period of two to four weeks before ending up in the Thames. Though they could, of course, be wrong. And here, Lord Powerscourt, is the only useful thing they have to say. They believe that he was not poor, or destitute. Quite the contrary. Examination of the stomach and other organs gives reason to believe that the dead man may have been comfortably off at least, if not rich. I presume they worked out that he hadn’t been living on tripe and onions. When I talked to these doctors they said that although they wouldn’t like to put it down on paper, they thought he was a rich old man. Mind you, that’s probably another reason why somebody wanted to kill him off.’ Sir William nodded grimly at his file of one hundred and fifty bounty hunters.

‘I don’t suppose the internal organs indicate how many life assurance policies he had,’ said Powerscourt, wondering if his flippancy was out of place.

‘Very good.’ The Commissioner laughed a laugh that turned into a strange braying noise at the end. ‘This is what we would like you to do for us, Lord Powerscourt. You move in the best society. You have connections with the aristocracy, with the City of London where our unfortunate cadaver made his last resting place. Could you put out discreet inquiries about anybody who might have gone missing, anybody who has just disappeared? These people are not very likely to come to us as their first port of call. They would much more likely come to you. But if you could help us, the Metropolitan Police would be in your debt. We must clear this matter up as quickly as possibly.’

‘I can assure you,’ Powerscourt replied, ‘that nobody has made any approaches to me, none at all. But I shall be only too pleased to help.’

As he left the Commissioner’s office Powerscourt paused briefly by the map of the East End. He noticed a fresh-looking circle which appeared to have been added in the last few days.

It was right across London Bridge.

‘Isn’t this fine, Richard, isn’t it just fine!’ Sophie Williams danced a little jig, oblivious to the strict looks of the sober locals, all dressed up in their Sunday best and on their way to church.

‘It is,’ replied Richard, slightly embarrassed at Sophie’s exuberance. ‘If we hurry on, we should see the river quite soon.’ He sounded anxious to escape from the citizens of Twickenham.

The young people had travelled to Twickenham by train and planned to walk along the river to Hampton Court. They had considered bringing their bicycles but Richard was not sure how suitable the roads and paths would be for two-wheeled traffic and he had an irrational fear of punctures.

Sophie Williams was twenty-one years old. She worked as a teacher in an elementary school by day and as a devoted campaigner for the suffragist cause by night. She was tall and slim with liquid blue eyes and wore her independence like a badge.

‘There is Eel Pie Island, Sophie. Should you like an eel pie for tea on our way home?’

‘I’ve only had eel pie once in my life,’ said Sophie. ‘I think it was by the sea somewhere when I was small and it didn’t agree with me. Maybe I should try again!’

They struck out boldly along the river path. A steamer from London was approaching the island, clouds of steam rising from its twin funnels and important hoots from its siren. The passengers stared eagerly at the sight of their landing stage and a faint cheer sounded across the March morning. There was a bright sun but a stiff breeze which blew the Thames into tiny waves that rippled against the banks.

Richard Martin was twenty-two years old. He was a slim, studious-looking young man with masses of curly brown hair. He lived with his widowed mother and worked as a clerk in Harrison’s Bank in the City. Richard had been there for five years now, studying at home in his spare time to improve his knowledge of commerce and banking. He went to evening classes to learn French and hoped to move on to German soon – Harrison’s had wide connections with other houses and merchants in Hamburg and Frankfurt and Berlin.

‘I’ve just got another three pupils in my class,’ said Sophie, as they struck out towards Teddington Lock. Richard had not known Sophie for very long but already he felt that he had a close acquaintance with the pupils in her care and the other two teachers in her school.

‘How many have you got now?’ he asked, keen to reduce matters to the safety of numbers. Richard had always been very proficient at numbers, equations, mathematical calculations that were invaluable to his work in the City.

‘Forty-seven,’ said Sophie. ‘Forty-seven six-year-olds.’

‘Do you think you should be paid according to the numbers of pupils you have?’ said Richard, looking for a formula in wide application in the Square Mile.

‘Nonsense, absolute nonsense.’ Sophie laughed. ‘I’d be perfectly happy to have fifty or sixty, particularly if they were all as well behaved as some of them. Little Mary Jones and Matilda Sharp are as good as gold. I wish I could say the same about some of the boys.’

Richard suspected, but he would never have dared say it, that the girls, potential voters all, might receive favourable treatment in Miss Williams’ class. Overhead a group of seagulls crying out against the wind hurried on towards the rich pickings of Teddington Lock.

‘That’s the one they call the coffin lock,’ said Richard, pointing to a deep tomb of a lock with water many feet below the river. ‘And that huge one there, the barge lock, can take a steam tug and six barges at the same time.’

He wondered if some of the produce shipped in and out of London and financed by bills of exchange underwritten by his bank passed through this very lock.

‘Just think of it, Sophie, somebody might send wool for America from the Cotswolds through here. And it would be paid for at each end through the bank!’

Sophie didn’t seem very excited at the thought. ‘You’re a romantic, Richard,’ she said, ‘a true romantic. For some people it’s poetry or music, for you it’s bills of exchange! But come on, if we don’t hurry up we’ll never get to Hampton Court at all.’

Richard was quite upset at being called a romantic. He didn’t feel romantic about locks. But he knew he felt very romantic about Sophie. She had a toss of her head that turned his heart every time he saw it. But he didn’t know if Sophie had any room for romance in her soul. She was so filled with the righteousness of the cause of women that she seemed to have no time for anything else.

‘You don’t want to have anything to do with girls like that, Richard,’ his mother had said to him when he told her of his new friend who lived at the far end of the street. ‘They don’t know how to care for a man. They’d probably rather be men, running round in those strange pantaloons and smoking cigarettes and wanting the vote for Parliament. Whoever heard of such a thing. Your father wouldn’t have let any of them in the house.’

‘But she’s very pretty, Mother, very pretty indeed.’

‘They don’t care about things like that, those new women,’ said his mother, a lifetime of scorn whipped into the phrase ‘new women’. ‘They’re not interested in finding a nice young man and settling down properly.’