Death at Hungerford Stairs (10 page)

Today, Georgie must go to Nat Boney to see if the dog, Poll, was there, and how much out of the three sovereigns it would cost to get the dratted thing back. No, Georgie was not keen on nature; dogs, apart from the profit they made, were a blamed nuisance. He would have liked another trade, he thought, something cleaner, less yappy. Horses, the races, that's what he'd have liked, but Mrs Georgie didn't care for racing – money down the drain. Mrs Georgie liked to keep her money where she could count it – under the frowsty bed where she now lay, an unromantic heap of flesh, gurgling like a drainpipe in her sleep. Lazy cow, he thought, bitterness rising like acid. Lazy bitch. And he was tied to her like a terrier on a leash.

In the kitchen, the boy – not a boy at all, but a thin, simple, shambling creature of nineteen – was eating a piece of bread. Georgie snatched it away and gave a spiteful squeeze to the thin arm before tossing the bread to the black dog with red eyes which snarled in the corner. The boy looked at Georgie and smiled his idiot smile. Georgie's anger flared and died. What was the point? Whatever was done to him, the boy smiled, though Georgie never noticed the hurt in his eyes.

The rain still fell, turning the lane to mud and slush, and the sky was dark and thick as wet wool. Georgie pulled on his oilskin. Bloody rain, bloody dogs, but two sovereigns were not to be sniffed at and, what's more, he might, just might, keep a bit back from Mrs Georgie – a little bit to add to his secret hoard. One day, one day, he thought, the terrier might just wriggle out of the leash. He picked his way fastidiously through the mud and made his way to Nat Boney's.

Scrap watched the cross-eyed boy come out of the door, which he held open with one hand so that he could set down one sack and reach back in for the other. Scrap heard the dogs barking, a clamour of yelps, howls and snarls. Scrap was poised. This was the moment when he could offer to help the cross-eyed boy. He stepped across the alley. Then something amazing happened. The door was smashed to the ground, and a great mastiff stood in the alley. The cross-eyed boy was bowled over, his yelping sack splitting to release a frightened spaniel which stood bewildered. And then a stream of dogs came racing through the hole where the door had been. Cross-eyes had left the cage open. Scrap heard a roar of rage and he saw Nat Boney rush forward into the writhing mass of dogs still in the yard. But the gods were just. Boney slipped on the collop of shit left by the mastiff for just that purpose. Down he went. Scrap heard the sickening thud. And the alley was full of legs, tails, tongues, teeth, barks, yaps. Poll? There she was shooting under the mastiff's bulk, popping out, seeing Scrap, barking her head off, leaping into his arms. Just as he bent to receive her, Scrap saw the astonished face of Georgie Taylor. Bloody hell! Two sovereigns! But Scrap was gone. Exit, pursued by twenty dogs.

He could not take them all. But he could lead them off. Away he ran, like Mr Browning's pied piper, the dogs barking and racing, diving off down alleys, some even running back the way they came, but hearing Boney's curses, leaping away again, mad with freedom, into gardens and passageways, through open doors into hallways where astonished householders tried to shoo them off, over walls, into shops, snatching chops from the butcher's counter, and following the scent of home, Scrap hoped. Home which was where he and Poll were bound. Home to Eleanor and Tom Brim, to Mr Brim and Mrs Jones who were in the stationery shop, about their daily business, but with a space in their hearts where Scrap and Poll should be.

Dickens was wet, too. He had come back from Shepherd's Bush on the knife-board, the narrow seat on top of the omnibus, as uncomfortable a ride as one might get in a coffin, but with the small advantage of being alive and in the open air, wet as it was. There had been room inside, but Dickens could never bear the smell of damp straw nor the smell of even damper clothes. Besides, the fat woman inside had given him such a look with her fishy eye that he had resisted the temptation to risk the smell so had climbed up on top. A man with an umbrella had attempted several times to poke out Dickens's eye, but that was nothing compared to the man who squeezed next to him, sneezing and honking like a sick swan. Leprosy, thought Dickens gloomily, remembering Rats' Castle and noting the sores on the man's face. If I don't catch influenza, then it will be leprosy. Leprous got off on Oxford Street. Too late, thought Dickens, watching a new passenger appear at the top of the stairs like a startled porpoise, dripping with water. Dickens felt the rain trickle down his neck. Home or Bow Street? The thought of a hot bath, a fire, and tea and cake was tempting, but Sam would want to know about Davey, and he wanted to know if there were news of Scrap. It was time he went to Crown Street and the Brims.

The omnibus disposed of him on Broad Street from where he hurried to Bow Street, arriving just at the moment when Mrs Elizabeth Jones, her face glowing despite the rain, was dashing in to find the superintendent. Dickens gazed at her shining face.

‘They are back! Scrap and Poll have come home. Charles, I could dance for joy.'

‘And, if we were not like to be arrested, I should join you in a polka. Let us get Sam, and be off. A cake – we must have a cake.' Oh, glory, Davey restored, and Scrap and Poll.

‘We must, I promised them – on the way.'

The superintendent summoned, good-natured Rogers in his wake, his red face shining, the cake bought, they went to Crown Street, to Mr Brim's stationery shop where they found a party beginning. Lemonade was ready, the plates were waiting for the cake. Tom Brim, aged five-and-a-bit, was sitting on the counter with Poll whose neck sported a red ribbon, and who seemed to be barking in time with the music. A man they had never seen before was playing a violin and Eleanor and Scrap were dancing madly to the tune. Mr Brim leant on his counter, watching it all, his eyes glittering, the tell-tale hectic in his cheeks witness to the disease that would kill him. But not yet, not yet, not until his children were a little older. Elizabeth Jones saw it all, and she, too, thought
not yet
.

Eleanor Brim danced another polka with Mr Dickens who had learned it from his daughters, and who had practised in the middle of one wintry cold night, fearful that the steps were forgotten. He had not forgotten them now. He and Miss Nell flew about the shop to great applause, while Sam Jones sat in the chair where Tom and Poll found room, too, and Elizabeth Jones took Mr Brim by the hand into the dance; though their steps were slower, Scrap saw that Mr Brim was happy, and he was, so he danced in and out of the whirling Eleanor and Mr Dickens, making up the steps. Constable Rogers joined him, and for just a little while, Dickens and Jones forgot about poor Robin and the unknown boy. And so they whirled, danced, and clapped to the wild, sweet music.

Then it was the cake and lemonade. The violinist was introduced to Dickens, Jones and Rogers. He knew of Mr Dickens, of course, had heard much about him from the Brims, how proud they were that Mr Dickens had put a nice dog in
David Copperfield
just for them – it was true. Eleanor and Tom had not much cared for Bill Sikes's dog so Mr Dickens had promised them a spaniel with silky ears, though it had to be admitted that no dog could be as intelligent as Poll. Poll, who had known all along that someone would come for her. And Scrap, the hero of the hour. He had found her and Eleanor declared that she had believed all along that Scrap would come back with Poll.

The cake was just a scatter of crumbs on the counter, the lemonade a sweet memory on the tongue, and the music an echo in the ear. It was time to go and leave the reunited family. Dickens, Superintendent Jones and Elizabeth went out into the darkening November street where the air was suddenly cold after the warmth inside.

‘Home, Charles, I think. I am going home, too. Rogers, you go and spend an evening with your shining Mollie Spoon. She'll be glad to see you, I daresay. They know where to find us if they want us. I sent Constable Feak to Hanover Street to see if he could find the French milliner, but there is no sign of her. We will continue our search tomorrow.'

Rogers went off, smiling. A night off. That was something. He certainly would go to see Mollie Spoon. He could not help smiling at the superintendent's pun. Mollie did shine – for him, at any rate. He had met her during the course of the investigation into the murder of Patience Brooke. Now he wondered when the time might be right for him to ask her to marry him.

‘I had a thought,' said Dickens, ‘about the masks. I found myself sketching them and drew a smiling mask and one with its mouth turned down.'

‘Comedy and tragedy?' asked Elizabeth.

‘That's what I thought, but I could not recall what the mask was like at the blacking factory. I wondered if it was a smiling mouth and if that was why it seemed so sinister – at least, not a child's work. Have I imagined that the St Giles's one had a downturned mouth?'

‘I cannot remember precisely, either. We could go to see on our way home. It is only a step. Elizabeth, would you mind?'

‘No – not that I am fond of a churchyard in the dark but with you two to protect me, I shall be safe.'

They walked up from Crown Street to Monmouth Street with its ghostly inhabitants hanging still about the second-hand clothes stalls; the bride was still there though it seemed that her military groom had taken his scarlet coat and gone to war. She was doomed to eternal spinsterhood, her net skirts getting yellower and dustier by the year.

It was early evening and the street was busy – there was the baked potato man with his little tin contraption, and the kidney pie man from whose portable oven sparks flew down the street every time he opened the door to hand a hot pie to a customer. There was all the hurry of coming home and getting out again; who was coming and who was going, it was hard to tell. The still centre of this turning world was the group of idling men gazing indifferently at the drunk in the gutter and the two scrawny women abusing each other like alley cats.

They crossed into Compton Street, passing the King's Head where the poster advertised the prize of a gold repeater watch for the champion rat killer. No need to worry about that now, thankfully, thought Dickens, watching the men going in with their dogs in their arms or on tight leashes. There were plenty of bull terriers, little welsh terriers, and one melancholy, shaggy white dog with a scarred face, very like Sikes's Bulls-eye, gave him a look which seemed to say that he'd had enough of it all and fancied something better. Dickens felt for him, but, seeing Sam and Elizabeth ahead of him, hurried on to the church.

They went in to look for the chalk mark on the old door at the side. Dickens could not help glancing at the cold tomb where they had found Robin Hart. Elizabeth saw the direction of his glance.

‘Sam told me. That poor boy – and his mother. What will become of her?'

‘She is safe for the present with Effie Scruggs, but they cannot look after her forever. I do not think she will survive the loss of her child.'

Elizabeth understood. She had lost her only daughter. Edith had died in childbirth and the child, too, but Elizabeth had had Sam. At first they had carried their grief with them like a large, unwieldy, heavy parcel that they could never put down, and which had to be handled with care lest it break one or the other. It was lighter, now, and they could sometimes put it down, resting for longer times when they could remember her with some of the joy she had brought them as a child.

Sam held his lamp up to the door. There was the mask with the mouth turned down slightly. The drawn in sightless eyes gave it a sinister look. Dickens wondered if it were more frightening than the other.

‘It is horrible,' said Elizabeth. ‘I wonder what it means to the murderer.'

‘It may mean nothing,' Sam responded. ‘It may be his way of leading us on, playing with us.'

‘If he is playing, then I might be right – he could be an actor, relishing his ability to disguise himself.'

‘The trouble is we do not know the man or the mask. We need to find the owner of that shawl – it is the only clue we have – and for all we know, it could have been dropped there before the murder. It might be no clue at all.'

‘And the toff as those girls called him – someone might have seen Robin Hart with a man.'

‘Yes, that is a lead. His mother cannot tell us anything about him, but he must have had friends, and he got money by taking messages so someone must have noticed him. I'll get on to that tomorrow.'

They went out of the churchyard and made their way to Oxford Street to take a cab which would take Dickens to Devonshire Terrace and Sam and Elizabeth to Norfolk Street.

‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow,' said Dickens by way of farewell. ‘At least we have Scrap and Poll back, and Davey has found himself again. It has not been such a bad day.'

‘Indeed not – I shall treasure the memory of your polka, Charles.'

‘When my biography is written I shall ask that my prowess as a dancer be included – as witnessed by Superintendent Jones of Bow Street. And now, a thousand times goodnight.'

They watched him as he went, his quick step taking him away, replacing his hat he had flourished in farewell,

Odd, thought Sam, how I always think of him walking alone, yet he is the best-known man in London – and the best loved, probably. He has a wife and eight children, but there is something in him, something in his eyes that I cannot fathom. Something missing, perhaps. He looked at Elizabeth who was gazing at the retreating figure, a curious expression of pity mingled with fondness.

Superintendent Jones was in his office next morning. Rogers had gone back to the blacking factory to check the chalk marks. Sam had no idea what it might really mean if the mask was smiling, but it seemed like something to do. Feak and Stemp were out looking for a French milliner, and he was here, thinking.