The Penny Dreadful Curse (7 page)

Apart from the
old char who had let out the distressing shriek, trudging off at
dawn to her place of toil in Jubbergate, Mr Corbie was the first on
the scene. He slept in a trundle bed in his kitchen to save on
heating the upstairs rooms and as a rule slept in his clothes to
keep warm, although that would soon change. He now had sufficient
funds to buy coals for his fire and would soon purchase new
vestments to wear while the others were being laundered. The little
bell jangled as he flung open his door, stomach clenched in
trepidation. He was not an overly imaginative man, more of a
pragmatist than a fantasist, that is not to say he did not delight
in creative fiction – how could he not! - but he did not spend his
time in wild daydream, nevertheless, he had read enough books to
prompt his pedestrian imagination into conjuring a vision of a dead
body in the runnel, perhaps stabbed or strangled, perhaps another
author, and for a brief moment he had entertained the wild notion
that this time it might be Conan le Coq.

But no amount
of imagination could have prepared him for what came next. He
rushed forth and slammed smack-bang into a dead body dangling from
a meat hook. He gave out a shocked gasp when he realized that the
meat hook was the one outside his own shop and that the body was
that of a young boy. At first he thought it might be Patch and his
heart froze and something inside him died, but when he recovered
his wits he saw that the corpse was layered in filthy rags. Patch
was poor but he could afford a woollen scarf, a cloth cap and
leather boots with laces. This penniless lad was scarfless, capless
and bootless, the poorest of the poor, an orphan without a home and
without hope.

A surge of
anger rose up in Mr Corbie though he was normally an even-tempered
man, a pacifist and a coward at heart, accustomed to Life’s
vicissitudes and grudgingly ceding to its unfairnesses. But this
was cruel. Heartless. Evil. Wicked. Wrong. Tears filled his eyes
and he blinked them back but they welled up of their own accord and
spilled down his bloodless cheeks, finding crevices in his crêpey
skin before trailing wetly between grey bristles.

Mrs Bagshott,
the char, continued to wail hysterically and it was the snooded
spinster, Miss Titmarsh, who arrived upon the scene next and took
the hysteric by the arm and led her into her teashop. A warm scone
and a cup of hot tea would soon see the old char right. A curious
crowd began to gather, shivering with cold and fright, wringing
their hands and shaking their heads, moaning about the sinful state
of the world at the close of the nineteenth century, muttering
about evil omens and the end of goodness and righteousness.

Mr Hiboux
joined his friend, Mr Corbie, and together they were about to lift
the dead boy down when Dr Watson appeared at the door of the
inn.

“Leave the
body,” he commanded brusquely. “Don’t touch it!”

“We cannot
just leave it,” protested Mr Corbie, staring at the puddle of blood
that had formed an ugly, viscous, red pond on his doorstep, which
he had unknowingly stepped into. “It is not right to just leave the
poor lad dangling like that.”

The curious
crowd ventured closer, morbidly attracted to the ghastly sight,
despite their fears and trepidations and superstitions regarding
death, or perhaps because of them, for it is a sad fact of human
nature that men and women are drawn to gruesome scenes of depravity
and violence, hence the popularity of public hangings and the
lucrative trade in souvenirs from horrible murders.

“It looks like
that drawing in
Ghosthunter!
” someone whispered.

“The Hanging
Ghost-Boy! I read it only last week!”

“Yes!” agreed
a third. “I never thought I would see such a thing for real!”

“Especially
not in the Shambles!” added a fourth with relish.

“Well, it is a
slaughterhouse!”

“Bite your
tongue!”

“Shut-up you
old fool!”

The crowd was
growing jittery; tempers were beginning to flare. Mothers ushered
their littlies inside, shielding sleepy eyes lest the sight induce
nightmares and invite ill omens. Dogs growled low in their throats,
some barked out of fear - others went to sniff the blood.

Frustrated at
her state of undress, the Countess pushed open her bedroom window
and poked her head out. Slumberous brunette tresses tumbled over
the window sill. Word had spread like wildfire and the curious
crowd had multiplied into a mob. She watched as a rag-tag group of
boys came barrelling around the corner. They clearly knew the dead
lad twisting in the wind because several of them blasphemed and
others began to weep. The smallest boy vomited into the runnel. The
biggest boy, wearing a cloth cap, demonstrated maturity beyond his
years.

“I’ll give you
a hand lifting the body down,” he said, addressing himself to Mr
Corbie.

“No one is to
touch the corpse!” barked Dr Watson, self-appointed guardian of the
dangling grotesquerie. “We must wait for the police. They will need
to examine the body the way it is.”

“It is
sacrilege to leave the poor mite hanging,” a squinty-eyed biddy
muttered through toothless gums, hugging a frayed and tattered
shawl as if to ward off the cold and guard against the evil eye.
“Reverend Finchley should be called to say a blessing for the poor
mite.”

“Never mind
Reverend Finchley!” blasted someone else. “Where are the bloody
police?”

“And what are
they doing about all these murders!”

“What use is
it to have a police force if they cannot protect god-fearing
citizens while going about their normal business!”

“Useless lot!
That’s what I say!”

“The police
are on their way,” proclaimed Dr Watson forcefully to compensate
for the fact he knew it would be a goodly while before a member of
the constabulary showed up. “Inspector Bird will be here any
moment,” he lied brazenly. “Keep back, I say!”

Desperate to
inspect the dangling corpse, the Countess waved away her maid,
threw a fur cloak over her silky peignoir, swapped her embroidered
slippers for ankle boots, raced down the stairs and onto the street
just in time spot Inspector Bird striding along the Shambles,
preceded by his enormous whiskers. He had been hurrying along
Coppergate, on his way to the river where two barges had collided
in thick fog during the early hours, when word reached him about
the grisly murder of a boy in the Shambles. The Ouse did not have
river police as did the Thames and the policing of the waterway
fell to the regular force. The inspector was a hardened stalwart
yet even he was shocked at the brutality inflicted on a mere boy.
The meat hook had gone into the back of the boy’s head in the place
where the neck met the skull. Whoever hauled the unlucky lad off
his feet must have held him aloft by the scruff of the neck, or
what there was of it, it being so thin and scrawny. There were
bruise marks under each ear where the fingers and thumb of the hand
had gripped tight, cutting off the vocal chords at the same time,
but the bruises were not consistent with strangulation. The boy was
alive when he was lifted off the ground. The thrust of the iron
meat hook into the soft spot at the base of the skull was what
snuffed out his young life.

“Clear off
everyone!” commanded the inspector. “That’s enough gawping! Go home
before I arrest the lot of you for obstructing a police officer in
the line of his duty!”

As soon as the
shivering mob retreated to the warmth and safety of their hearths,
the inspector called on Dr Watson to help him lower the body down
and place it on the pavement at the front of the bookshop. Mr
Corbie watched morosely through the bow window as he cleaned his
bloody shoe and Magwitch, not to be left out, cleaned his nether
regions.

“This boy is
one of the Snickelwayers,” said the inspector. “I don’t know his
name but I recognize the ginger hair. He lived with the group of
boys you just saw; orphans mostly, or runaways, fleeing homes where
the father or mother is gin-soaked and they are sick of getting a
cuff behind the ear just for breathing. But this is a terrible
murder. The most cruel and senseless I have ever witnessed from my
time in the force.”

“The killer
was right-handed,” observed the Countess, studying the lifeless
body as daylight swelled and made it easier to spot details that
had hitherto remained obscure. “It would be fair to conclude the
killer would have used his main hand to lift the boy off the ground
and the fingermarks on the throat indicate it was the right hand.
Oh, this is interesting. The boy’s fingers are clenched. I believe
he might be clutching something. Can I unclench his fingers,
inspector?”

He nodded as
he scribbled the time and date and location in his pocketbook.

“It is a torn
piece of paper,” she said as she teased it out, “and there is
something written on it.”

As she was
straightening up, a pack of dogs came loping down the runnel. She
jumped back in fright and almost lost her balance on the uneven
cobbles. At the same time the wind whipped the scrap of paper out
of her hand.

Dr Watson
tried his best to keep the dogs away from the corpse.

The inspector
pocketed his notebook and was torn between helping the doctor and
chasing after the scrap of paper. When the dogs turned their
attention to the puddle of blood and began to lick it up, he turned
his attention to the paper. He caught up to it several yards along
and managed to stamp his foot on it to stop it flying any further,
but as soon as he bent down to retrieve it the wind whipped it
away. When he got to the end of the Shambles and the scrap of paper
flew around the corner of St Crux and down the Pavement where
drays, cart horses and carriages rumbled up and down he gave up and
returned to the scene of the crime to find that Mr Hiboux had
located an old blanket from his linen cupboard and placed it over
the dead body.

The Countess
disappeared to complete her toilette while Dr Watson and the
inspector retreated to the teashop where Inspector Bird interviewed
the char.

Mrs Bagshott
was still badly shaken and did not have much to offer by way of
information. She had been hurrying to Jubbergate, minding her feet,
when she banged straight into the hanging corpse. She thought at
first it was a carcass of beef hanging on a hook, and then she
thought it might be a leftover Guy Fawkes dummy and a nasty joke
being played on the poor bookseller by the wicked boys who hang
about the Snickelways.

“It did
half-scare the life out of me,” she said, helping herself to a
second scone, “and when I realized it was a dead boy, well, that
set me off good and proper. There was no-one else going about. The
Shambles is always dead quiet at that time of the morning, no
barrow boys, no flower sellers, no pie-men, no pickpockets and no
patterers neither!”

“From whence
were you coming, Mrs Bagsott?” asked the inspector.

“From Fetter
Lane.”

“So you
crossed the Ouse and came up High Coppergate?”

She nodded as
she stuffed half a buttered scone into her mouth.

“Why is it
that you didn’t continue along Stonebow and Peaseholm Green all the
way to Jubbergate? Why detour through the Shambles? It is out of
your way,” he pointed out.

The char
washed down the rest of her scone with a mouthful of tea. “I always
pick up some kippers from the fishmonger in the Shambles. The cook
does them for the master’s breakfast. He likes his kippers fresh
and he is an early riser. I get paid thrippence extra for me
trouble. The master is a Jew but he ain’t no Jew, if you knows what
I mean,” she said, touching a canny finger to her nose. “He keeps a
nice house just outside the city walls in Jewbury with others of
his ilk. Knows his place.”

“Can you give
me his address?”

Her eyes
narrowed and her bottom lip protruded. “What fer? I don’t want to
lose me job from blabbing to you! You don’t need to go bothering
the master. You want to speak to me you come to number 7 Fetter
Lane not Foss Bank House! You hear! I’m late as it is and I might
get the boot for it if I don’t hurry along and get the master’s
kippers!”

The inspector
scribbled the two addresses in his notebook as the char rushed off
then he pushed to his feet and announced he would have to continue
on to the river to sort out the collision with the barges which had
resulted in fisticuffs, a broken nose and damage to cargo which
meant more strife by way of insurance claims. He had arranged an
appointment with Mr Panglossian - who had since returned from
London - for first thing this morning, but the doctor and the
Countess would have to go it alone and let him know later what
transpired. He didn’t think the death of the boy this morning had
anything to do with the murders they were investigating, which
meant he now had two separate murder investigations on his
hands.

The Countess
joined Dr Watson in the teashop to save Miss Titmarsh the trouble
of bringing breakfast to the Mousehole. As they discussed the
morning’s events over buttered muffins and scrambled eggs, the
Countess noticed the rag-tag army returning to the dead body. They
knelt around it. The youngest boy who had vomited began weeping
piteously, while the eldest boy with the cloth cap bowed his head
and said a few words. Mr Corbie, who was now scrubbing the blood
from his step, stopped long enough to join them.

The arrival of
a young constable to watch over the dead body until the horse and
cart from the morgue arrived sent the Snickelwayers scurrying in
different directions, except for the one with the cloth cap. He
followed Mr Corbie into the bookshop.

“Settle the
account and see what you can learn from Miss Titmarsh,” the
Countess said quickly while wrapping the last two muffins in her
linen and lace handkerchief. “Use your charm. What there is of it!
I’m going to the bookshop.”