Read The Last Pleasure Garden Online
Authors: Lee Jackson
The Last Pleasure Garden
HE
L
AST
P
LEASURE
G
ARDEN
by
Lee Jackson
William Heinemann: London
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Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781407089232
Published in the United Kingdom in 2006 by William Heinemann
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Copyright © Lee Jackson 2006
The right of Lee Jackson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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London Dust
A Metropolitan Murder
The Welfare of the Dead
ART
O
NE
HAPTER ONE
âW
ho's for Cremorne?'
The young man's cry rings out along the paved embankment, echoing beneath the girders of Hungerford Bridge.
âHow about you, sir? Care to go down to Cremorne tonight, sir?'
The gentleman in question is a rather whiskery man in his sixties, on an evening stroll along the river terrace. He merely shakes his head and offers a regretful smile, as if to say, âNo, no, I am too old for that â far too old.'
The young tout grins sympathetically. He looks down and rubs the brass buttons of his uniform. The tout's coat is an eye-catching red, a deep crimson, upon which is embroidered a capital C, the mark of the Citizen Boat Company. He raises his voice once more.
âCree-morne! Departin' on the hour!'
The cry carries far in the evening air. It is not long before it finds more receptive ears. For the tree-lined Thames Embankment is busy with promenaders and West End pleasure-seekers; the young man will not have to work too hard. Indeed, for every dissenter, there are two enthusiasts directed towards the wooden
huts that serve as the company's ticket booths, quite prepared to pay the fourpenny fare to Cremorne Gardens. And they do tend to come in pairs, two by two, much like the inhabitants of a certain famous vessel of ancient times, a good mixture of every breed of Londoner: the prosperous costermonger and his Poll; the shop-boy and his Sarah; the up-and-coming City clerk in sparkling white turnover collar, who walks in company with his Angelina, a muslin-clad creature, a zephyr shawl draped over her arm, a white rose pinned to her dress. And if there is no bona fide aristocrat amongst the steamboat crowd, there are at least a few swells, men who polish jewelled tie-pins and stroke their extravagantly long side-whiskers.
One couple, however, strike the tout as peculiar: a gentleman in his fifties, in a billycock hat and brown tweed jacket, and a younger man, no more than twenty-five, black-suited, with a fulsome white cravat. They seem an oddly formal pair for the Cremorne boat.
In fact, if the tout thinks anything, as he turns away, and resumes his vociferous entreaties to passing pedestrians, it is merely one word: âCoppers.'
âHave you ever wondered, sir,' says Sergeant Bartleby, unconsciously straightening his cravat as he completes his business at the ticket booth, âwhy we get all the queer cases?'
âStop your preening, man.'
âSorry, sir. I just thought, if we're supposed to be out on the spree, I'd dress the part.'
Inspector Decimus Webb looks rather brutally at the cravat. âI fear it would take more than that.'
There is no time to reply. A nearby chain is removed and the crowd jostles forward along the wooden pier. Knots of impatient customers begin to form, as the more delicate women in the assembled company cautiously negotiate the wooden bridge that leads to the waiting steamer.
âTake it slow, your highness,' says a raucous female towards the front. Several of the costers break out in hearty laughter. Others merely tut to themselves. Meanwhile, behind Decimus Webb, a pair of men raise their voices.
âStop that scrouging, won't you?'
âWell, perhaps you'd be so polite as to mind where you put your bleedin' hoofs?'
Most of the people nearby raise a smile at this debate. But Webb frowns. He is familiar with metropolitan crowds and possesses a sixth sense in such matters. He turns slightly towards Bartleby, raising his eyebrows significantly, giving a slight nod.
The sergeant, to his credit, unobtrusively glances down and responds instantly, placing a firm hand on the shoulder of the first âscrouger'.
âAnd perhaps you would be so kind,' says Bartleby, whispering in the man's ear, âas to remove your hand from the detective inspector's pocket, and hook it â the pair of you.'
The scrouger turns a shade of white and his friendship with his neighbour is abruptly renewed. The two men hastily push back through the throng under Bartleby's watchful gaze. The crowd, quite oblivious, moves forward.
âWe should have taken them down to Bow Street, sir,' says Bartleby, as they finally reach the steamer.
âAnd spend half the night at the police court? Don't you want to get to Cremorne, Sergeant?'
âMe, sir? I'm quite looking forward to it.'
The two policemen find a spot up on deck and it takes only a matter of minutes for the steamer to receive its full complement of passengers. The ropes are loosed from the moorings and the sound of the boat's engine, already rumbling below, changes its pitch. The machinery emits a reverberating rattle and, with a puff of steam from its tall funnel, the vessel moves off. Twin paddle-wheels direct it beneath the iron railway bridge that spans the river, linking Charing Cross Station with the south bank.
