The Penny Dreadful Curse (19 page)

Miss Isabelle
Flyte had finished entertaining her lover and was now moping about
listlessly in a lacy French peignoir liberally drenched in
parfum de rose
. The book by Nellie Bly was lying on the
settee, face-down, opened at the first chapter. She apologized
profusely for her state of undress but the Countess waved away her
concern, citing that she was female, foreign, and that the peignoir
was French. Over cups of scented tea and some shortbread biscuits
she wracked her brain for the exact day her lover arrived with the
package wrapped in brown paper but it continued to elude her.

“I don’t know
if this will be helpful,” Miss Flyte volunteered in recompense for
her poor memory, sensing the Countess’s disappointment, and being
the sort of young woman who had been trained to please, “but I have
noticed that Mrs Dicksen often gives a package wrapped in brown
paper to Miss Titmarsh while they are seated together at
church.”

The Countess
straightened up. “Are you sure?”

“Quite sure.
More tea?”

The Countess
nodded. “How often would you say you have noticed such an
exchange?”

A thoughtful
wrinkle puckered the pretty brow as the young hostess refilled
their china cups. “I have noticed it numerous times, probably every
month. Yes, every month. Mrs Dicksen arrives at church with a
package and Miss Titmarsh leaves with it. I thought at first it
might be a gift, but the wrapping is very cheap and not the sort of
thing you would expect from a lady of quality like Mrs Dicksen, and
there is no ribbon. It is tied with string and simply passed over
from one to the other while they sit in their box pew. There is
never any acknowledgement that a gift has been given or
received.”

“I think you
would make an excellent journalist, Miss Flyte. Your powers of
observation are first class. If you ever decide to make a career of
it you must let me help you. Have you ever mentioned your
observation to Mr Dicksen?”

“Oh, no,”
responded the young woman, pink with praise, emboldened, and heady
at the thought of her dream one day coming true as she passed her
guest some milk and sugar. “I thought it might anger him.”

“Anger
him?”

“Well, what
could the package be, I asked myself, and I concluded it must be a
manuscript because it is the right size and shape and wrapped the
same way as manuscripts are, and so I concluded Mrs Dicksen must be
secretly passing her husband’s work to Miss Titmarsh, though I
cannot imagine why. I’m afraid my imagination stalled at that
stumbling block and has made no progress since.”

“Yes, why?”
repeated the Countess meditatively, sipping her tea. “That is
exactly what journalists do. They ask themselves questions and then
search for the answers.”

“The way
Nellie Bly did,” gushed Miss Flyte, “when she admitted herself into
the lunatic asylum to observe the treatment of the inmates for
herself.”

“Precisely!”

But what was
the truth? Questions were mounting but no answers were forthcoming.
What would Mrs Dicksen gain by passing her husband’s work to her
friend? A friend who owned a teashop! She couldn’t see how either
woman could profit from the exchange. Perhaps Reverend Finchley,
everyone’s trusted confidante, might supply an answer but the
Countess had no time to pay him a visit. She was due to meet Dr
Watson at midday and it would be unforgiveable to arrive late.

Dr Watson’s
father had been a stickler for punctuality and the habit had been
instilled in the son. The doctor was one of those people who lived
in fear of arriving late for an appointment or social engagement
and erred on the side of early, even to the point of embarrassment.
To avoid such embarrassment becoming entrenched he had often taken
to circumambulating the block before knocking on the door of his
host or hostess, or even instructing a cabbie to take the longer
route across town rather than the more direct route, even though it
cost him more for the fare.

The Countess
arrived just prior to midday but the doctor was already pacing
outside the Theatre Royal. He was looking pleased with himself.
They found a teashop near the Minster.

“Well,”
prompted the Countess, heartened by his self-satisfied smile, “did
you gain access to Mr Dicksen’s study?”

“I’m afraid
not. He refused to budge. We were taking tea in the parlour when I
hinted I would like to visit his study and he became aggressively
defensive of his private space. When his wife suggested it could do
no harm, he turned on her most violently. His behaviour was not
only defensive but offensive. I then spent the better part of my
visit calming troubled waters.” He paused and smiled. “However, I
was more successful in the second matter.”

“Oh, well
done,” she warbled, clapping her hands. “You asked for directions
and pretended to have arthritis?”

“Not quite,”
he said happily, fishing a calling card from his inside pocket. “I
cordially invited him to visit the premises Sherlock and I once
shared, rather than the London home I shared with Mary during our
married years – a home I have been reluctant to part with – whose
address is still on all of my calling cards but which does not have
a B in it.”

“But number
221B Baker Street does!”

“Naturally I
waited until Mrs Dicksen had vacated the room, lest he direct her
to write down the address, then just before I began to write it
down I explained I had recently developed arthritis and passed the
pen and card to him. When he wasn’t looking I stole it back. I
handled it rather smoothly, even if I say so myself. Take a
look.”

She took the
card and her face fell. “It’s not the same.”

“How can you
be so sure? You should at least wait until we return to the
Mousehole to compare the letters properly.”

“I don’t need
to compare them. This one is entirely different. It is much bolder.
The stem is straight and the double curve is achieved without any
loops or flourishes. The letter is finished using two separate
strokes; lifting pen from paper just the once. The B’s on the scrap
of paper from the dead boy are done with one fluent stroke. The pen
does not leave the paper. It starts at the top, sweeps down at an
angle, curves back up to the top, sweeps over the downward arm
without touching, curves once to the middle but stops short of the
downward arm, makes a small loop and repeats the curve. The top
curve is smaller than the bottom curve. Here, on this card, the two
curves are identical in size. This one has been executed by a
different hand.”

Their lunch
arrived and she recounted what Miss Flyte had told her about the
package Mrs Dicksen passed each month to Miss Titmarsh.

“That puts a
different slant on why Mr Dicksen is so adamant about keeping his
wife out of his study,” the doctor surmised with a grimace. “Mr
Dicksen probably suspects her of the theft of his work but is
unable to prove it and is loath to confront her.”

“Reverend
Finchley
must
know something. In fact it is more than likely
he is behind it. It was for his sake that Mrs Dicksen wanted to
gain entry to her husband’s study.”

“Mrs Dicksen,
Miss Titmarsh and the deacon could be in on it together.”

“To what end?”
she posed, not disagreeing with his proposition. “If Mary had
stolen sections of your work, how would it have profited her?”

“It is
unthinkable,” he dismissed scathingly, incensed at the mere
thought. “I cannot even imagine it let alone tender an
explanation.”

“Forget your
emotional attachment to your dear departed,” she chided gently.
“Think logically, doctor.”

“Hmph,” he
harrumphed, incensed further at the inference he was not thinking
logically and that his dear Mary could ever carry out such a
devious and underhand act. “The only explanation that springs to
mind would be if someone wanted to discredit an author. Steal the
work before it is published and hand it to a rival author who then
publishes first. The second author to publish would be accused of
plagiarism. Hard to refute. Difficult to disprove unless you can
show a direct link from the first author to the theft of your work.
Impossible if the rival author uses a nom de plume that maintains
anonymity. Once your writing reputation is besmirched there is no
coming back.”

“In that case,
my money would be on Reverend Finchley as the rival author. He has
a private study at the top of the belfry of the Holy Trinity. I
would dearly love to see inside.”

“How can he
work amongst all the ropes and bells?”

“The ropes and
bells have been removed – the result of a crack in the bell and too
many churches and not enough trained bellringers in York. I wonder
how he forms his B?”

His voice
dropped to a clandestine whisper. “Churches are never locked. Apart
from the vestry, inner doors are simply bolted. It shouldn’t be too
hard to gain access to a bell tower.”

A greyish
glint lit up her eyes. “Shall we take some air tonight after
dinner?”

The afternoon
passed pleasantly admiring the ecclesiastical splendour of York
Minster. Dusk was gathering by the time they returned to the
Shambles, alighting from the carriage at the seven ways.

“There is a
light burning in the belfry,” noted Dr Watson, indicating the
perpendicular tower poking above the sea of slate grey roofs.

“The deacon is
working late,” she mused wryly.

The Shambles
with its heavy overhangs was at its gloomiest at dusk. Most of the
shoppers had disappeared and the shopkeepers were locking up for
the night. A mere handful of gaslights were burning and a mournful
wind seemed to whistle through the crooked lane like a lost soul on
its way to a funeral.

The doctor
paused momentarily outside the Mousehole with his hand on the
doorknob while the Countess peered through the latticed window. Mr
Hiboux was at his desk.

“Let us
surprise him,” she whispered.

The poor man
almost died of fright. He leapt up from his desk to greet them and
almost tripped over his own feet. It gave the Countess time to
cross the parlour and make it all the way to his desk before he
could conceal his drawings.

“How lovely!”
she trilled, picking up a sketch and studying it with exaggerated
eagerness. “I didn’t realize you were so talented!” she gushed.
“You should be an illustrator, Mr Hiboux! Or, is it that you
are
an illustrator?”

He coloured
guiltily and tried to tidy away his scribblings but she was too
quick for him and snatched up a fresh sheaf of drawings.

“Yes, er, I am
an illustrator,” he confessed grimly, sounding like a criminal
confessing to a murder. “You have discovered my, ah, my dark
secret. I illustrate, er, penny dreadfuls.”

“You use a nom
de plume?” The statement was phrased interrogatively.

“Yes,” he
admitted. “Even as a small child I, er, loved drawing but my
mere
forbade it. I still feel disobedient every time I, ah,
pick up a pencil. My parents opened this inn on the Shambles the
week after I was born. It was originally called L’Hotel Huguenot,
but when maman ran off with the, er, coalman my
père
decided
to break all ties with the past. It was me who suggested the name
Ye Olde Mousehole Inne because my
père
, who, ah, was always
a small, twitchy, timid man, seemed scared to venture out after
that. He did not understand the bitter irony. His grasp of such
things was, ah, never good, but he knew his wines and he knew how
to cook. The inn prospered well enough. But my heart was never, ah,
in it. When my
père
died I did not have the courage to sell
up. I had grown timid too. But then I saw an, ah, advertisement for
illustrators. I sent in some of my drawings and was, er,
immediately accepted. The job paid poorly at first but then came
the penny dreadfuls and they, ah, took off. My style of drawing and
the dreadfuls were a match made in heaven, a
coup de foudre
– love at first sight. Suddenly I was, ah, drawing day and night. I
now make, er, a good living from my drawings and keep the inn
solely out of respect for my
père
.”

“You’re Ben
Barbican,” said the Countess. “You do the drawings for
Jack
Black the Highwayman
and
Crimson Cavalier
- two of the
most popular dreadfuls.”

He nodded and
allowed himself a rare smile.

“Do you know
the authors of those publications?”

He shook his
head. “On the first day of the month I, er, take my drawings
directly to Panglossian Publishing on Coppergate. I leave them with
a man called Mr Thrypp. On each occasion he, ah, pays me for the
previous month’s work and hands to me the manuscripts yet to be,
er, published so that I can draw something to match the story. I
have never met the authors of the two publications I illustrate. I
have never even met Mr Panglossian.”

“How strange,”
mused the doctor after Mr Hiboux excused himself and retreated to
the kitchen to see to supper. “Panglossian goes to extraordinary
lengths to ensure anonymity.”

“Anonymity or
secrecy?” said the Countess. “Panglossian seems like a man with
something to hide. And Thrypp is there to see that everything runs
as smoothly as clockwork in his absence, the mechanism behind the
face, out of sight, out of mind, tick, tick, ticking along.”

A place you
have visited in the daytime can look vastly different at night,
especially if that place is a churchyard. At night the spirits of
the dead are palpable, ghosts inhabit every shadow. The little
churchyard of the Holy Trinity stood behind a huddle of old
buildings zig-zagged by narrow alleyways. In the daytime it was
pleasantly secluded and restful, a haven from the hustle and bustle
of the city, a respite from the wind. At night it was a dark,
dangerous, hedged-in, haunted space, a trap for the unwary, the
foolhardy and the bereft. A shiny brass knocker glinted in the
bluish moonlight as the church door creaked open.