The Penny Dreadful Curse (28 page)

“What happened
next?” prompted the deacon after they settled back down with
teacups and slices of cinnamon cake.

“I could see
at once that the horseman was dressed exactly the same as Jack
Black the Highwayman in the penny dreadful of the same name. He had
a black mask and a tricorne hat and a great oilskin coat that
flapped like an angry bird. He was even riding a sleek black steed
sheened with sweat. I nearly burst out laughing at the sight of
him, the relief was overwhelming. I thought it was a pantomime, a
theatrical jest. But when he brandished a gun at my coachman and
then pointed it at me, shouting: Stand and deliver! Well, I was
filled with terror. My emotions see-sawed dramatically, I suddenly
felt frightened for my life. I thought of my nine darlings being
left motherless. I thought of my unborn child. I did the only thing
I could do, the only thing a mother would do. I acted on instinct,
like a mother lion protecting her cubs. I pulled out my gun and
shot him. After that, I fainted and cannot remember anything
clearly. I am relying on you to fill in the rest.”

Mrs Dicksen
pillowed back and looked eagerly, encouragingly, from the Countess
to Dr Watson, as she lubricated her throat with some warm tea.

“Please speak
frankly,” she urged, nibbling heartily on a slice of cake. “I would
like to know what passed. I have been wracking my brain all night
but it’s like a strange dream, where you wake, and are conscious
for a few moments, and then you go back to dreaming. Except in my
case the dream is the reality. I vaguely recall waking and hearing
someone say I shot my husband. I think I fainted again. I remember
a police inspector arriving at the scene, or perhaps I merely
dreamt it. I have a shadowy, unclear, half-formed picture in my
head of some other gentleman who spoke with a foreign accent. He
seemed to come from nowhere, like a guardian angel. I remember his
voice. It was kind and gentle. He made me feel safe. I remember my
maid helping me to bed. I remember Dr Fairweather giving me a
sedative. And now I beseech you, help me to understand what
happened.”

Adopting a
sympathetic tone, the doctor was the first to start, confirming Mrs
Dicksen’s vague recollections of the tragic turn of events.

“Inspector
Bird arrived at the scene. He had been summoned by the coachman
driving the foreign gentleman in the carriage travelling along the
Foss Islands Road at the time, going in the opposite
direction.”

“He is a
Dutchman, Monsieur van Brugge,” added the Countess. “A painter of
portraits, staying with the Panglossians. He had been to the
Friargate Theatre and was heading back to Jewbury. Why did you
nearly laugh when you saw the highwayman?”

The question
was phrased without forewarning, coming deliberately at the end of
some irrelevant detail. The Countess wanted to gauge Mrs Dicksen’s
reaction and watched her with heightened interest.

Mrs Dicksen
remained sedately calm and unruffled, a look of innocent gravity
suffusing her eyes, but Reverend Finchley turned a shade of coral
pink and visibly bristled.

“It’s all
right, Beauregard,” Mrs Dicksen said to her cousin in a placatingly
maternal tone, placing her hand gently on his, before giving a
curiously arresting laugh. “I am Ryder Saxon, author of
Jack
Black the Highwayman
.”

Transfixed
with astonishment, neither the Countess nor the doctor spoke.

Reverend
Finchley gazed proudly, adoringly, affectionately, at his cousin
and when their eyes met the two of them burst into a full-throated
syncopated laugh that lasted for several long and loud seconds. The
unconstrained relief and mirth and exaltation in their garrulous
giggling became roundly infectious and built to a hilarious
crescendo.

“My cousin,”
explained the deacon, reigning in his extravagantly unrestrained
guffaws, “made more money from her penny dreadfuls than her husband
made from the sale of his noble novels. Sweet irony, you see, that
he should be shot while disguised as a highwayman! Forgive me, I
know it is unbecoming for a man of God, but I cannot stop, er,
laughing,” he burbled before breaking into another fit of the
giggles.

Mrs Dicksen
was a little more successful at reigning herself in. “I realize it
is uncharitable to speak ill of the dead but I for one am heartily
sick of reading obituaries where every deceased person is lauded as
some kind of saint. I sometimes fantasise about reading an obit
that says: The man was an arrogant, egotistical, vicious
monomaniac; his wife and children are glad he has gone to his Maker
sooner rather than later! My husband’s obit will be suitably
glowing, but believe me, he was no saint. I started writing because
he allowed me no life but the one between the four walls of this
bedroom. Apart from Sunday mass, I was not permitted to leave the
house. Gladhill was not a glad place for me! It was more like a
prison! I was not permitted to have friendships. I was not
permitted to travel, not even a trip to the seaside or a picnic in
the countryside, let alone to Leeds or London. My job was to breed.
Once a month when I was most fertile I had to submit to my
husband’s demands. There was no love, no tenderness, in the act. It
was a demonstration of his ownership of me, his power, his control,
and the end result was proof of his masculinity, his mastery, his
magnificence!”

“He’s gone
now, Henrietta,” reminded the deacon with more than a touch of
blessed relief to his tone, patting her hand. “Though I cannot
guarantee he has gone to his Maker!”

She smiled and
sighed. “I can scarcely believe it! I had to pinch myself all
night!”

Dr Watson,
having enjoyed a loving union and still carrying a candle for his
dearly departed wife, could not hide his puritanical disapproval of
such levity regarding the death of a fellow human being, let alone
a spouse; his tone was censorious in the extreme. “Do you think
your husband knew of your writing?”

“That I was
Ryder Saxon, you mean?” clarified Mrs Dicksen.

He nodded
curtly.

“All night I
wracked my brain at that very question. It certainly seems so,
otherwise why dress up as a highwayman? It would have been a grand
joke on his behalf if I, Ryder Saxon, had died at the hands of a
highwayman!”

“If he knew,”
surmised the Countess, “he could only have discovered it from Mr
Panglossian.”

Mrs Dicksen
shook her head. “No, no, Panglossian had no idea. I passed my
manuscripts to my friend, Miss Titmarsh, at church and she passed
them on to the publisher. She collected the royalties on my behalf
and donated them to various charities at my behest. Mr Panglossian
would have known Ryder Saxon and Baroness du Bois to be one and the
same person.”

The Countess
ruminated on this for several moments.

“Were you
aware that Miss Flyte sat behind you in church and saw you pass a
package to Miss Titmarsh on a regular basis?”

“No, I was not
aware,” said the lady, blanching. “But Miss Flyte couldn’t have
known what was in the package.”

“But she may
have correctly guessed it. She had seen your husband with his
manuscripts and knew the size and shape of them. I don’t know if
she realized you were Ryder Saxon but it would not have been
impossible for her to draw the conclusion your package was a
manuscript. I wonder if she had recently mentioned what she saw to
your husband?”

“Oh, dear,”
said Mrs Dicksen gravely, digesting the repercussions. “If Charles
suspected me of being a writer he would certainly have searched my
room. My stories are in my little secretaire.” With her eyes she
indicated an old-fashioned writing desk with a roll-top, standing
unobtrusively in the corner. “I keep it locked at all times. The
key is in my ribbon box. It would not have been hard to locate the
key if he had wanted to search for it. And yes, that would explain
him wanting to frighten me or perhaps even kill me.”

“And why he
dressed the part,” added the deacon solemnly.

“But I killed
him instead,” pronounced the lady with a pardonable lack of
grief.

“It’s finished
now,” said the deacon with a solacing smile. “The nightmare is
over. Thank God you are safe. Which brings me to another point –
Dicksen’s private study.”

Mrs Dicksen
understood at once what he was alluding to.

“I don’t have
the key, Beauregard. Charles always took it with him.” Suddenly her
eyes twinkled. “We could break down the door.” She reached for a
small silver bell on her bedside table and gave it a tinkle. When a
maid arrived she instructed her to inform the gardener to come
forthwith and to bring his largest axe.

The study door
was soon reduced to kindling and the contents of Mr Dicksen’s
private domain open to scrutiny at long last. It was not a large
room but clearly an extremely busy one. Bookshelves lined the
walls, punctuated only by a bay window and the fireplace. There
were books and papers everywhere; notes, jottings and several
dictionaries open at different pages. And there on the desk,
liberally strewn with loose leaf papers, was a manuscript written
in green ink. The name at the top said: BB – Baron Brasenose. Every
page was littered with scribblings, crossings-out, annotations and
arrows. There was only one thing wrong. It did not have a torn
corner. The cover page was perfectly intact.

“Here’s
another manuscript written in green ink,” said Dr Watson, searching
the bookshelf by the door. “And this one has the corner torn off
the cover page.”

“Let me see,”
said the Countess, rushing to his side. “Yes, I’m sure it’s the one
Gin-Jim must have been carrying. I’m fairly certain the missing
corner will match the torn scrap of paper.”

“That confirms
it,” pronounced Mrs Dicksen scathingly. “My husband was reworking
the manuscripts submitted by Baron Brasenose.”

“Plagiarising
is more to the point,” said the doctor with disgust.

“I would call
it unmitigated theft,” said the Countess, unmincingly. “Do you mind
if I take this torn cover page?” she directed at the deacon.

Reverend
Finchley sank into the nearest chair. “I knew it,” he said weakly.
“I knew it. Yes, yes, take it if you think it will do any good,
though I cannot see how it will make any difference now that
Charles is dead.”

Mrs Dicksen
knelt at his side and spoke soothingly. “You can re-submit your
work, Beauregard. Mr Panglossian will have to reassess it.”

“What’s more,”
said Dr Watson sternly, “Mr Panglossian will have to admit to being
in cahoots with Dicksen. I think he has a lot to answer for. It
certainly sheds new light on the death of the boy in the
Shambles.”

They continued
to search the shelves but no other BB manuscripts turned up.
Doubtless Dicksen had been careful to destroy them once he had
finished with them. The five that had not made it into print were
most likely rejected outright and never sent to Dicksen in the
first place, or rejected by Dicksen himself.

“Oh, dear,”
said the Countess, glancing at the carriage clock on the mantel. “I
have an appointment to see Panglossian at midday.”

“When did you
arrange this?” quizzed the doctor in an aggrieved tone.

“Hastily last
night as we were leaving Mallebisse Terrace, Mr Panglossian
apologized to me for being so harsh-lipped when I dropped in on him
at Foss Bank House. I think he wanted to make amends for his
abruptness, actually, more like rudeness. He promised to give me a
list of his authors and told me come to the publishing house at
midday. I forgot to tell you because so much happened last night.
First, Miss Flyte saying the paper was written in green ink, then
finding out that Miss Titmarsh was Baroness du Bois, then Miss
Carterett waiting for us in the inglenook, scared out of her wits,
and finally Inspector Bird coming to tell us that Mr Dicksen was
dead. After all that, I think I can be forgiven for omitting to
mention an appointment at midday.”

The doctor
didn’t say so directly but the Countess could see she was
forgiven.

“I would like
to come with you,” announced the deacon fiercely. “I want to have a
few words with the publisher who has rejected my work and then sent
it to someone else to be reworked, resubmitted and accepted with
only the flimsiest of alterations. I think I have a bone or two to
pick with Mr Merlin Panglossian.”

“No,” said the
Countess firmly. “Today is not the time to pick bones. I understand
and acknowledge your grievance, your anger, your desire for
reparation and apology, and God knows what else, but I beg of you,
not today. If you confront Mr Panglossian before I have had a
chance to extract the list from him he may not hand it over. It
could jeopardise our chance of finding out who is killing off his
authoresses and who might be next to be killed. That must be our
first priority. We have managed to discover the answers to quite a
few mysteries since yesterday and I feel on the verge of a
breakthrough. I can see the pieces coming together. One more day is
all I ask. In fact, not even that,” she vowed recklessly. “Don’t
make any plans for tonight. I may summon you both to the Mousehole
at short notice after dinner. If everything falls into place I will
know the name of our killer before the close of day.”

“Pride goeth
before a fall,” reminded Dr Watson as they waltzed out of Gladhill
and hailed a hansom for Coppergate.

She
confidently laughed off his fatuous warning. “That’s not how the
saying goes. It is: Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty
spirit before a fall. Proverbs 16:18.”

He rolled his
eyes, but secretly he was impressed. Not that she knew her bible
and could quote it chapter and verse, but that she could
confidently claim to have narrowed down the possible killers to a
short list. He still had no idea. As far as he was concerned it
could be anyone in York – the butcher, the baker, the candlestick
maker. He conceded it had to be someone with a grudge against
authoresses who penned dreadfuls but that still left the field wide
open as far as he was concerned.