The Murder of Patience Brooke (17 page)

‘Certainly, certainly,’ Tiplady blushed, aware suddenly that he was doing it again. ‘He is a clerk for Ducat’s – they are upstairs.’

‘How long has he worked for them, do you know at all?’

‘A year or so, I believe. He was here before I came.’

‘Do you, perhaps, know where he lives?’ asked Dickens.

‘I am afraid, afraid not – I do not know him really – I don’t – he is –’ Tiplady broke off in confusion.

Dickens put the question. ‘You do not like him?’

Tiplady blushed again. ‘I would not want to be unfair or unkind  –’

No you would not, thought Dickens, but you did not like him just as I did not nor Scrap.

Tiplady continued with a rush, ‘He is unpleasant, sneering – he acts as if he knows something that I – or others – do not. He has money, too. More than most.’

‘I have seen him briefly,’ said Dickens kindly, ‘and I did not like him either.’

They thanked him for his help, told him not to mention their conversation with anyone else, and made their way up the ill-lit staircase to Ducat’s.

They hoped that Blackledge – a decidedly appropriate name, a scraping, rasping sort of name, thought Dickens, who could never begin a novel without the names, for without names there could be no characters – would not be there. If he were, then Sam had said they would invent some business about a missing person. ‘Thin,’ Sam had admitted but it would have to serve.

There was a musty old clerk there who coughed dustily and did not know, could not say, doubted, felt it unlikely – another circumlocutionist – that Mr Ducat who, of course, was an extremely busy man, many calls on his time, could, or even would, be able to see them. Sam insisted, and the little man, bent over like a question mark, disappeared into an inner office. He returned, looking anxious. Mr Ducat could, would, give them a few minutes of his time. He motioned them to the door and in they went.

Mr Ducat, senior partner of Ducat, Sterling and Cash, looked as prosperous and polished as his name. Ducat was a man who was well paid to cherish the secrets of his wealthy clients. His desk was neat with papers carefully piled, sealing wax, a handsome silver ink stand and a couple of golden sovereigns which gleamed in the dim room.
Sealed
bags of ducats, double ducats
, thought Dickens, remembering Shylock crying through the streets of Venice after his missing daughter. Ducat stood up to meet them, tall, sleek, handsome in a predatory way. His smile was easy. Like Ambrose Tiplady, he wished to be of service; unlike Tiplady, his eyes betrayed caution, the well-oiled wheels of his mind turning quickly.

‘Thank you for giving us your time, sir,’ said the superintendent, carefully erasing any hint of irony, and looking as deferential as he ought to as a mere policeman. ‘My friend, Mr Dickens and I wish to know something of your clerk, Mr Blackledge. We think he may have information that could be useful to us concerning a confidential matter which pertains to Mr Dickens.’

There was a calculated bewilderment in Ducat’s smile. ‘I know Mr Dickens, of course. I am very happy to meet the author of so many wonderful books but I do not know in what way my clerk’ – the emphasis on the last word was clear – ‘could be of assistance. Is it in connection with his professional duties? If there is anything to do with Ducat’s, I should be happy to help you. I can hardly think that he would have information about any client of ours which I do not know about.’

Ducat wanted to know. He would be concerned if Blackledge had any secret dealings with any of the important clients. Dickens’s heartbeat quickened. Perhaps Blackledge did have dealings with an important man – a man who knew something about Patience Brooke – blackmail, he thought suddenly.

The superintendent was apologetic. ‘I am sure it has nothing to do with your business here, sir, but we would like to know something about him. Anything you can tell us may be useful.’ Sam felt he was treading on the slippery edge of ice at the circumference of a pond – he wanted information without having to disclose information.

Ducat was reluctant, but he knew they would not tell him anything more. He was aware of the superintendent’s rank, and he was aware of the fame of Charles Dickens. Who were his solicitors? he thought. Dickens would be an important client if a firm could get him.

‘Mr Blackledge has been with us for over a year. He is a most capable man, most assiduous in his work –’

‘The nature of which is?’ The superintendent interrupted. He was becoming impatient but his tone was smooth.

‘Well, he would copy deeds, wills, conveyances, all kinds of documents. He would sometimes see clients on matters of routine – documents that might need to be read, signed; he might give advice – that sort of thing.’

‘Would he meet any of your more distinguished clients?’ asked Dickens. ‘He is clearly a man you value.’

‘Yes, he would, if the matter were only routine as I have said; for example he has recently been working on deeds connected with the Crewe family,’ Ducat paused, afraid he had been indiscreet, then recovered. ‘But I am not sure, Mr Dickens, Superintendent, how this can help you at all.’ He was polite but it was clear that he, too, was growing impatient.

‘You are right, sir, I am sure the matter does not touch your business. We simply wanted to know a little about Mr Blackledge and you have painted a picture of a most reliable employee. If you will keep our confidence, I am sure that Mr Dickens will not object to my telling you that the matter is to do with a distant relative of his – we had an idea, no doubt erroneous, that Mr Blackledge may have known this person. We will not keep you any longer. Goodnight, and thank you, sir.’

They bade farewell to the dusty clerk and made their way down the stairs in silence. They did not exchange a word until they were safely through Gray’s Inn gate.

‘Have you thought of the stage, Sam, as a new career? We could form a new company, Dickens and Jones, tragedy, comedy and humility our specialities.’

Sam laughed. ‘Did I overdo it?’

‘Not at all. I almost believed your story about the distant relative. I loved “no doubt erroneous” – I really thought we were wrong for a minute.’

‘We did not get his address, but I thought we ought to get out of there before he smelt too big a rat – I could sense him sniffing a small one!’

‘Do you think it gets us anywhere? I did have one thought – I wondered about Blackledge’s connection with important clients – blackmail, I wondered.’

‘Did you notice that he slipped out the name Crewe? That might be useful.’

They walked on back to Bow Street. Dickens turned over the name ‘Crewe’ in his mind. It was a name he knew well.

Dickens had parted from the superintendent and made his way home to Devonshire Terrace where he expected guests for dinner.

All the time during the dinner at which he sparkled as usual, a thin dark thread of thought ran at the back of his mind. Looking at the distinguished guests, and the table with its pyramids of bright fruit, the candles rising out of the artificial flowers, their reflections glittering on the glasses and silver, he was remembering his grandmother, the housekeeper at Crewe Hall and his grandfather, the steward. It amused him in a cynical, if painful way, that those seated there knew nothing about his grandparents in service more than forty years ago nor about his maternal grandfather, Charles Barrow, caught out in defrauding the Navy Pay Office. He knew that sharp-tongued Jane Carlyle, there with her husband tonight, laughed behind his back sometimes. He had been told that Edward Fitzgerald had thought him a snob for calling his son after Tennyson. Did they not know that he was well aware of his desire for substance, for the material things with which he wanted to weigh himself down? He wanted to make assurance double sure, otherwise the dark might close in and all that he had gained might vanish. Beneath the glittering surface of his fame, as if deep in dark water, lay the memories of the Marshalsea and his father’s disgrace, Gower Street, the home with nothing left but a few chairs, the trips to the pawn shop, a family so reduced that his mother and the younger children were forced into the prison, and he left to drudge in the blacking factory and to pay for his own bread and cheese, lounging about the streets as forlorn as any vagabond. And now the name of Crewe had risen out of the dark water like a spectre come to haunt him.

Later in bed, Dickens lay awake thinking about the Crewe name and the link to Blackledge, and if there were a connection to Patience Brooke. It was uncanny and disturbing the way in which fragments of his own life touched the murder – it had occurred at the Home set up by him, the song Davey had heard, Blackledge at Gray’s Inn where he had started his working life, Patience Brooke at the Polygon, and now the Crewe name. We are all connected by fate, without knowing it, he thought. People supposed to be strangers suddenly brushed by us, looming out of the crowd to disturb us when we least expected them.

He slept at last, but restlessly, and in his dream he was in that suffocating tunnel with Scrap who vanished into the shadows, leaving Dickens to face the figure that followed them, the man with the crooked face and a knife in his hand who dissolved into another shape, a man whose face he did not know, but who pursued him through a maze of strangely empty alleys that seemed to go down and down, never ending, never reaching the light.

Dickens awoke on Thursday morning still beset by the thoughts and dreams of the night. He took his daily shower, went in to breakfast where the busy domestic scene steadied him. Later, sitting at his desk in the study, he thought about the Crewe family. It was forty years ago. What had it to do with him now? There was no need to tell the superintendent about his connection with the Crewes – not that Sam Jones would judge him. If ever there were a man without pretension, Sam Jones was he – a staunch friend who judged men by their deeds not their name or fame – a man with a face that had nothing to hide, but showed himself exactly as he was. But there was in Dickens’s mind, still, a niggling worry about his links to the case. Perhaps Sam ought to know. At the very beginning, they had wondered if the murder had been intended to discredit Dickens and his work at the Home. He was sensitive about the past – was someone trying to dig into it and to wound him? When he thought rationally, it seemed unlikely. If they found Blackledge, then he would know.

He looked at the blue slips of paper on his desk, conscious that he had written nothing. There was a letter from Mrs Morson in reply to his own that he had sent by hand, telling her what they had found out about Blackledge. She was grateful that he had persuaded Miss Coutts to let her employ James Bagster’s sister. Things were quiet; even Isabella and Sesina were behaving themselves though Lizzie Dagg was still depressed. Mrs Morson hoped to see him soon and would he write with news about Patience when he had some. Dickens was relieved; at least there was no pressing need for him to go to Urania Cottage though he would like to see Georgiana again – soon, he thought.

At Bow Street, Sam told him that Rogers and another man were keeping watch for Blackledge at Gray’s Inn. They were to follow him if they saw him to try to find out where he lived. If they did, then that night would be the time to beard him in his den. In the meantime the superintendent and Dickens would go to Snide Alley to find out what Annie Saywell could tell them about the Rivers family.

A cab took them to Eversholt Street by Euston Station with its huge iron roof and great Doric portico. The Polygon was as shabby as Dickens remembered. Snide Alley by the mean-looking Cock Tavern was even shabbier. The dwellings here were a mixture of small cottages, broken-down sheds and disused stables. Superintendent Jones asked a boy playing with stones in the gutter if he knew where Annie Saywell lived. They were directed to the last cottage in the alley after which they could see a patch of unenclosed yellowish grass strewn with bricks and bits of timber, and where, improbably, a donkey was tethered. Annie Saywell’s cottage was small, two rooms by the look of it.

‘Let us hope she does,’ said Dickens.

‘Does what?’ asked Sam, puzzled.

‘Say well,’ Dickens replied, his eyes telling that he hadn’t been able to resist the pun.

‘Very droll, Charles,’ Sam replied though his smile showed he was amused.

He knocked on the door which was opened by a sturdy woman of about forty years dressed in black with a cleanish apron covering the dress. She eyed them suspiciously.

‘We are looking for Annie Saywell,’ said Sam Jones. ‘Is she in?’

‘And who might you be?’ asked the woman, stepping forward to prevent their coming closer.

‘Superintendent Jones from Bow Street. We want to ask her about the Rivers family. Your – er – mother – used to work for them, I believe.’

‘Yes. You’d better come in then.’ She opened the door and they stepped into a tiny room with a ceiling so low that they had to stoop. The room was lit by a smoky oil lamp. It was a dark day and little light found its way through the one bleared window. A small, older woman of about sixty was sitting at the table folding piles of laundry. She looked at them with curiosity.

‘Policemen wanting to know about the Rivers, mother,’ the daughter spoke loudly. Annie was deaf.

‘Oh,’ said Annie, doubtfully, her face crumpled like a linen dishcloth.

‘We want to know about the daughter, Patience, if you can tell us, Mrs Saywell.’ The superintendent raised his voice so that she could hear.

‘Somethin’ ’appened to ’er?’

‘She is missing and we would like to try to find her,’ Sam said. It was not necessary to talk of murder. ‘Tell us about the family, if you will.’

‘Sit down, please. Emma put the kettle on. Can I give you some tea?’

‘Thank you,’ said Sam as they took a chair each at the well-scrubbed table.

Emma was busy at the fire while Annie Saywell set out cups. The china was pretty but there were only two saucers and the cups did not match. Sam was patient while the tea was made and served, though he could sense Dickens’s desire to get on with it.

‘Now, Mrs Saywell?’ Sam’s voice was kind. Kindness and patience would coax Mrs Saywell to tell them all she knew.