The Murder of Patience Brooke (20 page)

Sam slid it from under the bed. The other key on the string opened it. Inside there was cash in sovereigns and notes, altogether about three hundred pounds. And there were some letters addressed to Mr A. Blackledge at the Western Central Post Office at Holborn and marked ‘to be collected’. Sam opened one of these. ‘He had a wife – and a daughter.’ He scanned the contents and handed the letter to Dickens while looking at the other two.

‘She wants to know when he is coming home. She asks him to send some money as she is a little short and the butcher needs paying. The child is well now after suffering from a winter cold,’ Dickens gave a precis of the contents.

‘These are along the same lines. She is glad he is doing well in Town, but hopes he will come soon and, again, she tells him she is in need of money. The address is Brick Holes, Shepherd’s Bush – very interesting.’

‘I wonder if he went home at those times he was watching Urania Cottage – I bet that is where his pedlar’s tray is,’ Dickens said.

‘We’ll have to go and see her – tell her he’s dead, and tell her about the money. It is hers – if they are actually married. Let us hope so. This death will be reported to the coroner tomorrow – we can’t keep this one quiet. There’ll be an inquest, but not for four or five days so time is still on our side. Feak, Rogers and I will give evidence. You won’t have to – I’ll see to that. I don’t want Teddy to know about you – you’ll be the one to do the asking about him – he must belong to a club – he must go out into society – that’s where we can find out more about him. Then, when we know a bit more, we can go and tell him his wife’s dead. See how he responds to that. We’ll take the cash box with us and those clothes. We need them as evidence. Can you carry the box? I’ll send Feak and another constable back tomorrow to talk to the neighbours – they might have seen Blackledge with Teddy. Someone might know something useful about them. We’ll meet tomorrow after lunch time. I’ll have reported to the coroner by then. Have you a Burke’s peerage?’

‘No, but I know where to find one. I’ll look up the Crewes by tomorrow afternoon.’

They went out into the rainy night. The alleys were quiet now and their footsteps echoed behind them as they left Lantern Yard. They glanced up the lane to the alley where Blackledge had died, but there would be nothing there now except the blood staining the stones. Most of it would be washed away by the rain, into the sewers, away to the river, and at last to the sea itself.
Making the green one red
, quoted Dickens to himself. All that blood, and Patience’s too.
Blood will have blood
.

Dickens walked from Bow Street to Devonshire Terrace. He thought of Edmund Crewe and the superintendent’s grim portent that Crewe would hang. His own anger had matched Sam’s when they contemplated what had been done to those young girls, children really, what had been done to Patience, even the murder of Blackledge though he was a crook. He understood the desire to see that man punished, to see him suffer as his victims had suffered, but he wondered what difference it would make. He had written letters to the
Daily News
in
1846
arguing against the death penalty. He had argued that the watching of such scenes led to a disregard for human life, a coarsening of the souls of those who saw the spectacle. He had seen, and had not forgotten the jeering, bawling callousness of the crowd at the hanging of Courvoisier. He did not believe in it as a deterrent; the threat of hanging had not deterred Edmund Crewe – Dickens thought that the ever-beckoning shadow of the gallows would tempt the murderer on to defy it, to laugh at the phantom even if it should catch up with him. This, he thought, would be the psychology of Edmund Crewe – insolent, dissolute, brought up to believe he was invincible, reckless and without feeling for his fellow men or women.

The house was quiet at this late hour; the children would be safe in their beds. He thought of those little girls abused by Edmund Crewe, and Blackledge, probably, even if Louisa Mapp did not want to believe it. They were perhaps twelve or thirteen, only a year or so older than his Mamie and Katey still playing with their dolls and toy theatres. It would be Mamie’s birthday soon. What would she like? Papa to be there, he knew, and he resolved to be present. To bed.

The next morning, after Dickens had worked on his manuscript, he walked down to the offices of
The Examiner
to consult Burke’s peerage which told him that Sir Hungerford Crewe was the third baron, grandson of the first baron, Sir John Crewe for whom his grandparents had worked. The country seat was Crewe Hall in Cheshire and there was a town house in Grosvenor Street. He was not married so there was no heir yet. There was one sister, Annabella, unmarried also. No Edmund – so who was he?

He went on to Bow Street. Feak had been sent back to Lantern Yard and Rogers would go to the Crewe Town House; he would be investigating burglaries around the neighbourhood. It would be helpful to talk to the servants and ask if they had seen anyone suspicious. Rogers, that inventive young man, would find a way to worm information from some unsuspecting kitchen maid, so the superintendent said. Dickens told him the address and away he went.

Dickens and Jones made the familiar journey to Shepherd’s Bush by fly which was quicker. They asked about the location of Brick Holes. It was not far from Sepulchre Lane. Dickens wondered if Mrs Blackledge were one of the congregation, one of the elect. They found Brick Holes, another gloomy yard off Angel Lane, parallel to Sepulchre Lane. Where the angel was in the dark griminess of its lane was difficult to tell – perhaps in chapel with Godsmark – or, not, if it had any earthly common sense. Brick Holes was tidy enough despite its name, a bit like Lantern Yard, poised between propriety and disgrace. There were neat enough children playing in the courtyard and in a grassy plot seen through the gap between two houses, and two women in aprons chatted over their laundry baskets. They could see poles and lines in the little plot beyond – perhaps the Jopps had been selling their wares here.

‘Mrs Blackledge?’ enquired the superintendent. The smaller of the two stepped forward, anxiety creasing her thin face. She was young, perhaps late twenties, but worn-looking, faded in her old brown dress, the colour of which emphasised the sallowness of her complexion. She was no oil painting, but neither was Blackledge. She would hardly compare to the voluptuous Louisa Mapp in her red velvet.

‘Yes?’ she asked. ‘What do you want?’ It had to be bad news. Why else would two well-dressed strangers come to Brick Holes?

‘May we go inside, Mrs Blackledge?’

‘Mary, keep an eye on Rose for me will you?’ She spoke to her neighbour. Her voice was low and pleasant, educated.

‘Yes, dear. ’Ope everythin’s awright.’ The woman, Mary, looked curiously at the superintendent.

Mrs Blackledge took them inside the cottage. It was clean, neatly if sparsely furnished with a couple of armchairs by the low fire, a table with four chairs round it. There were books on the table, a pen and some paper. Was she writing to her husband again?

She looked at them, her colourless eyes wide with fear, her thin lips slightly parted. Dickens looked at the superintendent. It would be hard to tell her – he was glad that he did not have to do it.

‘It is bad news, isn’t it? He’s dead, isn’t he?’

‘I am afraid so, Mrs Blackledge.’

Ironically, she asked the same questions as Louisa Mapp had. Two women, so different, but the same in that their hopes were blasted.

‘How? When?’

‘Last night. He was found dead near his lodgings in Lantern Yard. He was murdered.’

Her head went down but she was too shocked to cry. Only a dry sob like a cough escaped her. They waited for her to recover. Her eyes were dry and she blinked as if they were full of grit. It was curiously different from Louisa Mapp’s noisy grief. It was difficult to tell what she felt.

‘Tell us what you can about him, Mrs Blackledge.’

She looked puzzled. ‘I don’t know – you mean about his work, about him, what?’

‘His work?’ said the superintendent. He thought she might go on unprompted to tell them about him as a husband.

‘In London. He went to work there about two years ago. He didn’t want us to go until he had a better place to live and earned more. I wrote to him at the Post Office. He said in London he had to change his lodgings too often to give me an address. He worked for a good firm – he had prospects, he said, but we had to be patient.’

‘Have you always been here? What did your husband do before he went to London?’

‘We came up from Portsmouth. He worked for the Navy Pay Department, but there was some trouble – the accounts didn’t add up. They blamed Alfred, but they couldn’t prove anything. It was unfair. Alfred said he couldn’t stay where they thought he was dishonest so we came here and stayed with my sister until we rented this house. Alfred went to London – the Pay Office gave him a reference – they could not prove he had taken money.’ Her sallow face was flushed. Like Louisa, she did not want to believe he was crooked.

How history repeats itself. Dickens thought of his grandfather, Charles Barrow, another fraudster of Portsmouth who was caught and proved guilty. He felt sorry for this mouse of a woman who had no idea of what her husband had really been. And another link to his own life – was this case destined to make him remember what he had buried so deeply?

‘Did he come back often?’ Sam asked.

‘No, he said he had to work hard there, study the law in his time off if he wanted to get on.’

‘Has he been back in the last few weeks?’

‘He came back a couple of weeks ago, and also at the end of January.’

‘Why?’

‘He said one of the clients at the law firm had asked him to do a bit of work. The client wanted him to find out about somebody. It had to be secret – like detective work. He laughed about it – said he would make a bit of money from it – to add to our savings.’

Dickens glanced at Sam. He knew what the superintendent’s next question would be, and he hoped Mrs Blackledge knew the answer.

‘Did the detective work involve disguise?’

She looked astonished and afraid. ‘How did you know?’

‘What disguise?’

‘He dressed as a pedlar. He left his tray here. Rose played with it, pretending to sell me ribbons and things. She liked a piece of black velvet ribbon to tie round her neck – pretending she was a lady at a dance – in her white nightdress – you know. He was annoyed about that. Told her not to touch the tray, not to take it outside – ever. She was frightened. I put it away – upstairs. He took the ribbon away from her – I don’t know why he had to do that.’

‘May we see it?’

She nodded and went out. They heard her slow tread on the wooden staircase. She came back with the tray and they looked at the pincushions, bits of lace and ribbon. Dickens stared at the black velvet ribbon, a piece of which Patience had bought, and which she had worn with her white dress in Mrs Morson’s dream.

‘You can take it. I don’t want it here, now.’

A little girl of about eight came in. ‘Ma,’ she said, ‘it’s too cold to play out.’ She saw Dickens and Jones and looked at them uncertainly, and at the pedlar’s tray.

‘We’ll take it. Rose, would you like some of the black velvet ribbon?’ Sam asked her, pointing to the coiled velvet in the tray.

She shook her head. ‘Pa’ll be angry. I can’t have it.’

‘It’s all right, love, Pa won’t mind – now.’ Mrs Blackledge was gentle.

Rose came over and took the ribbon. But it wasn’t the same – the joy had gone out of it. Dickens could see that it was worth nothing to her now.

‘There’s pink ribbon, too,’ he said, remembering Mamie and Katey with pink ribbons in their curls. ‘It matches your name. Why not take that?’

She gave him a smile which gave a fleeting beauty to the little pale face with its slightly twisted mouth. She took the ribbon with her left hand, holding it carefully like a gift.

‘Take your ribbon upstairs, Rose and put it in your treasure box. These gentlemen will be gone soon.’

She smiled at Dickens again and went out; they heard her feet skipping on the stairs.

‘Was your husband left-handed?’ asked Sam.

‘Yes. Why?’

‘I just wondered. Rose is.’

‘She is – it makes things difficult for her. I wished she wasn’t so like him – in looks, I mean …’ She looked sad.

‘Did her father love his daughter?’ asked Dickens, thinking of the pinched little face.

Mrs Blackledge looked hurt, but not because of the question. ‘I don’t think he did.’ That was all. She said nothing else but it told the two men that Blackledge had loved neither of them, and Dickens thought they would be better off without him. What might he have done to his daughter had he lived or would he really have gone to America without them? Probably, and without Louisa Mapp, as well.

‘What happens now?’ she asked.

‘There will be an inquest in a few days which you will have to attend. Have you anyone who can come with you?’

‘My sister will come.’

‘There is some money. He had about three hundred pounds which will come to you.’

‘Thank you.’ She looked drained. She could not yet take in what the money might mean to her. Blackledge had done more for her in death than he had ever done in life.

Sam had to ask. ‘You do not know who he was trying to find or where he went?’

‘He told me nothing about it. He just came, as I told you. He stayed the night both times and went back to London on the Saturday – to report to his client, he said.’

‘And he did not say who the client was?’

‘He did not – only that he had plenty of money, and that Alfred would do well out of it. Did he kill my husband because of what he found out?’

‘We do not know. We will try to find out.’

‘I hope you will. Alfred did not deserve to be murdered whatever –’ She stopped, and in the silence that followed they knew what kind of husband he had been.

‘We should go now. Perhaps your sister will come,’ said Sam.

‘She will. She is very good.’