The Penny Dreadful Curse (8 page)

Talk about
charm! Or what there was of it! She was the one stealing
muffins!

Mr Corbie and
the boy with the cloth cap were breakfasting on some porridge,
though neither appeared very hungry. The Countess thought it had
more to do with the tragedy of the morning rather than the
unappetising appearance of the lumpy gruel. Magwitch was lapping up
some warm milk from a chipped saucer.

“Good morning,
Mr Corbie,” she said genially but not too brightly. “Miss Titmarsh
asked me to bring you the last of her buttered muffins leftover
from breakfast, oh, I see you have a friend with you. How
fortuitous. There are two muffins. What a tragic thing that was
this morning,” she rambled on conversationally, turning to the boy
in the cloth cap. “Did you know the young lad who was killed? I
thought perhaps you did because I saw you saying a prayer over his
body just now.”

Patch turned
bright red and pushed back his chair with the backs of his knees as
if preparing to flee. The Countess kicked herself and Mr Corbie,
remembering the fifty pounds warmly, intervened helpfully, adopting
a fatherly tone.

“Patch this is
Countess Volodymyrovna. She is staying at the Mousehole Inne with
Dr John Watson who is the famous author of the chronicles of the
consulting detective, Mr Sherlock Holmes. Mr Hiboux told me the
Countess, and her doctor friend, are also consulting detectives.
They are assisting Inspector Bird with the York murders and perhaps
the Countess thinks those murders might have had something to do
with the death of Gin-Jim. Why don’t you sit back down, Patch, and
have a muffin while I make some hot cocoa with milk. I’m sure your
chimney-sweeping will keep. You can have both muffins. I am not
very hungry this morning.”

The young
chimneysweep sat back down, albeit warily, and eyed the muffins
greedily. After the muffins had been consumed and several minutes
of small talk had ensued and cups of cocoa had been dispensed,
Patch relaxed his guard.

“Gin-Jim is an
unusual name,” broached the Countess, proceeding cautiously while
returning to the topic of the dead boy. “Did your friend like to
drink gin?”

Patch laughed
loudly before gulping his hot drink and licking his lips in
appreciation. “It stands for Ginger Jimmy coz, er, because he had
red hair. None of us use family names coz, er, because we don’t
really have family, or if we do we don’t want them to find us so we
make up names for ourselves. There is Fozzy the farter and Mugger
and Stinky and, well, lots more.”

“Oh, yes, I
see.” The Countess smiled indulgently. “Do you think the death of
your friend, Gin-Jim, could have had anything to do with the
murders in York?”

Patch shrugged
and turned defensive. “How would I know a thing like that? And how
could it? I heard tell the people
who
was killed was
writers. Gin-Jim couldn’t write scat but his own name.”

“Yes, the
people who died were all writers. More specifically they wrote
penny dreadfuls. I am not suggesting Gin-Jim was a writer but could
his death have been in any way related to penny dreadfuls?”

For a brief
moment the boy looked frightened and the Countess knew she had
struck a chord. She looked at Mr Corbie. He had noticed the flicker
of fear in the boy too. He was looking at her to see if she’d
noticed it. The bookseller intervened once more, adopting a
paternal tone.

“Patch, why
don’t you tell the Countess about the penny dreadfuls you rent
out?”

Patch
swallowed hard, coughed to clear his throat, and recounted how he
bought ten dreadfuls each month which he then rented out for a
halfpenny.

“Do you enjoy
reading dreadfuls?” the Countess asked.

Patch nodded
enthusiastically. “The stories take me out of myself. I forget
everything bad in life when I read. I imagine myself in them.
Sometimes I imagine I write them too.”

“Who taught
you to read?”

“Miss
Carterett. She’s smashing! Most of the boys learned from Miss
Carterett. She’s the school mistress. The boys cannot get enough of
dreadfuls. Miss Carterett learns the boys, er, I mean she teaches,
for free.”

“Which books
are the most popular?”

“
Varney the
Vampire
and
Jack Black the Highwayman
are the best. The
boys fight over who gets them first.”

“Which books
did Gin-Jim like best?”

“
Ghosthunter!
He only just learned to read last summer and
it has the easiest words. But lately his reading got better and he
took a liking to stories with knights in them too.”

“You mean the
books by Dick Lancelot?”

“Them's the
ones!”

“What do you
think Gin-Jim was doing in the Shambles so early in the
morning?”

Patch
immediately clamped up, dropped his gaze and gave a shrug of his
bony shoulders.

“You can tell
the Countess,” encouraged Mr Corbie gently. “She wants to find who
killed Gin-Jim and she cannot do that if she doesn’t know what
Gin-Jim was doing.”

The Countess
spoke softly. “Is it possible Gin-Jim might have seen something or
someone, or heard some news that got him killed?”

Patch
continued to stare blankly at the kitchen table.

Mr Corbie
tried again, “I occasionally saw Gin-Jim hurrying past my shop
early in the morning, carrying a parcel. Do you think he might have
been carrying a parcel this morning?”

Patch looked
up and gave a reluctant nod. “Once a month or thereabouts he would
carry a parcel from Panglossian to Gladhill.”

The Countess
looked at Mr Corbie for clarification. “Is Gladhill another
publisher?”

The bookseller
shook his head. “It is the home of Mr Charles Dicksen, the
world-famous author of
Bleak Hall
and
Great
Infatuations
. Panglossian may very well be doing some editing
of a manuscript prior to publication. Mr Charles Dicksen,” he
finished emphatically, “does
not
write penny dreadfuls.”

Patch pulled a
torn piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Mr Corbie.
“I was going to ask you what you thought of this,” he said
sheepishly. “Boz saw when the Countess pried it out of Gin-Jim’s
hand and it flew off down the runnel and the inspector gave chase.
After the inspector gave up, Boz kept after it and picked it up in
the Pavement and passed it to me, thinking like it might be
important. I can’t see what it means, though. I mean, I don’t see
how it means anything. It’s just some letters that don’t even make
a word. Still, I wanted to ask you what you thought it meant, Mr
Corbie, that’s why I came in to see you just now.”

Mr Corbie
glanced at it curiously. “BB,” he said quizzically, handing it on
to the Countess. “Could they possibly be the initials of the
killer?”

“I doubt it,”
said the Countess, studying the paper which was of middling
quality, sold almost everywhere. The letters however were
beautifully formed using a fountain pen with a wide nib. “The
scholarly sweep of the letters suggests someone who writes
frequently with practiced ease. Besides, the boy would hardly own a
fountain pen, nor would he have had time to write down the initials
of his killer. Even if he knew in advance he was going to be killed
it is unlikely he would carry a paper with the killer’s initials on
it written in such lovely lettering.” Her elegant brows formed a
puzzled frown. “If I am not mistaken I believe this scrap of paper
has been torn since I last saw it. I’m sure it was slightly larger.
I’m sure there was more writing on it than just the initials BB.
You can just make out the start of the next letter but I cannot
tell what it might be.” She looked earnestly at Patch. “Did your
friend find the paper like this or did he tear it?”

“I can ask
him,” said Patch. “But I don’t think he would tear it deliberate
like.”

“Can Boz
read?”

“No,” said
Patch. “He is the youngest of our gang; just turned six. He was the
one
who
chundered. That’s why he didn’t run like the rest of
us when the inspector showed up. He was still feeling poorly.”

The Countess
felt reassured that Boz would not have torn the paper because of
something he recognized, a name perhaps, or a title. She was
anxious to take another look at the penny dreadfuls. Which nom de
plume had the initials BB?

“Where would I
find Boz if I wanted to speak to him?”

“He works out
by Castle Mills Bridge and sometimes when the tide is low he goes
to the Fishpond.”

The Countess
turned to Mr Corbie. “The fish pond?”

“It is a
marshy area, east of the city.”

“What does Boz
do there?”

“He goes
mudlarking.”

Mr Panglossian
was a stout man with an abundance of presence characterized by a
booming voice, a trait common to successful, self-made,
foreign-born men who have battled long and hard against the status
quo of aristocratic entitlement and the English establishment. He
had reached his sixtieth year, give or take some years, but showed
none of the usual signs of ageing such as greyness or baldness. His
hair was prodigiously thick and black with a large kink that kept
the massy wave in place where it swept back. His skin was swarthy,
his eyes dark and piercing. His nose was long and prominent and
curved like that of a bird of prey. His face was clean shaven and
jowly, his breath smelled of kippers smoked in a vat of
amontillado.

“You must be
Inspector Bird,” he boomed. “Come in, come in, been expecting you
for the last hour.” He dismissed his male secretary with an abrupt
sweep of his fat hand as if swatting a fly.

“Inspector
Bird sends his apology,” explained the doctor. “He was unable to
keep the appointment. I am Dr Watson and this is Countess
Volodymyrovna. We are assisting the inspector with his
investigation regarding the recent deaths in York. That is what we
have come to speak to you about.”

“A terrible
business,” he tut-tutted loudly, gesturing dramatically toward some
leather wing chairs. “Five deaths! Take a seat. I think you should
be looking for a lunatic. There is an asylum on the outskirts of
the city and the supervision of the inmates is scandalous. Are you
planning to write a book about the murders after you are done? Is
that what brought you to Panglossian Publishing?”

Dr Watson
shook his head. “The five women who were killed were all
authoresses of penny dreadfuls,” he explained, grateful and yet
slightly miffed that his name went unnoticed, especially by an
important publisher.

“Ah! I see, I
see! Like that, is it! Some lunatic out to kill off dreadful
writers!”

“I think you
might mean: writers of dreadfuls,” corrected the Countess.

“What? Oh,
yes, indeed! Quite a different thing, isn’t it? Don’t want to get
one confused with the other.” As he made his way back to his desk
he ambled past a large French armoire and flung open the double
door with a dramatic flourish. “Now, here is what we call the
dreadfuller dreadfuls! Rejects! Hundreds of the blasted things
every month!” He rolled his eyes as he closed the doors on
manuscripts that would never see the light of day as books and
moved to a sideboard. “A cup of tea for the Countess? And a sherry
for you, doctor?”

“It is a bit
early for me,” returned the doctor.

Mr Panglossian
checked his pocket watch and frowned. “Ah, yes, I see what you
mean! Not yet gone half-ten. I lose track of time; early riser, up
with the birds. I have already checked our new printing presses –
the most modern in the country - signed a dozen letters, perused
the accounts with…Did you say you wanted a cup of tea, Countess? My
secretary, Thrypp, most efficient man I ever employed, can see to
it. The man brews a damn good Souchong; no end to his talents.”

It was hard
enough to keep Mr Panglossian on track as it was. They did not need
the added distraction of juggling teacups. “No, thank you, what do
you do with all the rejects?”

“What? Well, I
keep them until the cupboard begins to groan at me then I have a
bookburning, so to speak, or more precisely a non-book-burning,
about six times a year. Due for one now!”

“Do you have
an editor who actually looks at them?”

“Certainly!
What are you implying? I take umbrage! There may be a pearl among
all that dross! I check every submission personally! That’s how I
started in the business and that is how I mean to go on. I have a
nose for the sort of thing that sells, and an eye too! Yes, I can
tell at a glance, well, by the first page at least, if a story will
be popular with our readers. Or not. I don’t go by fancy title or
famous name or big words. I keep the ones for publication in the
armoire over here. Right and left, you see. Right means publishing,
left means off to the pyre.” With a wave of his big hand he
indicated an armoire directly opposite the one he had briefly
opened, containing all the rejects. “You’d be surprised who pens
the best dreadfuls. We have some highbrow, educated, prominent
people writing for us but most are ordinary folk who just have a
knack for it. Most write for money, of course, but some write as a
hobby and some write because they have a creative itch that needs
scratching.”

“Does it pay
well?” enquired the doctor in an interested monotone, not that he
needed to supplement his income anymore, though in the past it
might have come in handy.

“Not at first
go, but if your dreadful proves popular there is certainly good
money to be made. I liken it to hotcakes. If you sell one or two
hotcakes you will soon starve to death but if you sell hundreds and
hundreds of the things, well, there is no limit!”

“Are most of
your authors of male or female persuasion?” quizzed the
Countess.

Mr Panglossian
returned to the seat majestically positioned behind his gargantuan
desk and backed himself into it with regal precision, much like a
king taking his throne under the watchful gaze of his adoring
subjects, mindful of his royal dignity. “Are you sure I cannot
interest you in a sherry, doctor? Or some tea for the Countess?
Women, mostly.”