The Angel Read online

  ‘So,’ Batchelor asked, leaning forward but feeling it was inappropriate to pat a knee, ‘you are that Stella, are you? You knew Charles Dickens?’

  ‘Of course I am and of course I did,’ Boulton chuckled. ‘Such a lovely man. He told some people that I was the new woman in his life.’

  ‘You were at the funeral?’ Grand asked.

  ‘God, no. That would be chancing my arm a little too far, I think. No, Fanny and I outrage society enough as it is, but in the abbey, for a friend? No, even I have my limits. No, I drank a little sherry in Charles’s memory, but that was all.’

  ‘So …’ Grand was trying to sort out the tangle in his own mind. ‘Charles Dickens was … a friend of yours?’ He wasn’t sure how to put it; there must be some form of words, but he was blowed if he could think what it might be.

  ‘Lord, no!’ Boulton frowned, swigging from the flask again. ‘I mean, yes, he was a friend, of course, but he was strictly a ladies’ man.’

  ‘Real ladies, he means,’ Park thought he ought to clarify.

  ‘Quite. No, Charles saw our act, didn’t he, Fan?’

  ‘Loved it, Mr Batchelor. Loved it. Insisted on seeing us after the show – rather as you two did, you naughty boys.’

  ‘We were chuckling, you know,’ Boulton went on, ‘about drag and so on, and I said that Charles should put me in his next book.’

  ‘Edwin Drood?’ Batchelor wanted to be sure.

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘But there’s no Stella in that,’ Batchelor said. ‘There’s Pussy and Rosebud …’

  ‘He hadn’t got round to it when the great landlord in the sky called time,’ Boulton said. ‘I was due to appear in Chapter Twenty-Four, I believe, when the twist in the tale first appears.’

  ‘The twist being …?’

  Everybody in the cab looked blank.

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ Boulton trilled in his Stella voice again. ‘You can’t second-guess the master. He had something in mind, that was for sure. No, I just gave him a bit of local colour.’

  ‘You visited Gads Hill, though,’ Grand checked. ‘Talked to the houseboy, Isaac.’

  ‘Was that his name?’ Boulton asked. ‘Yes, I remember: sweet lad. A trifle on the simple side, but well meaning.’

  ‘And you went with Dickens to the opium den?’

  ‘Where?’ Boulton looked horrified.

  ‘Bluegate Fields?’ Batchelor said. ‘Canton Kitty’s.’

  ‘God, no,’ Boulton bridled, emptying his flask with a final swig. ‘That stuff’ll kill you. I look after myself. My body’s a temple; what is it, Fan?’

  ‘A temple, Stell,’ Park nodded approvingly.

  ‘There you are,’ Boulton said. ‘Can’t both be wrong.’

  ‘Did you have any reason to want Charles Dickens dead?’ Grand had to ask.

  ‘Me?’ Boulton shrieked. ‘That’s a terrible thing to say, Mr Grand. He was a sweetheart, that man. A brilliant, funny, dazzling sweetheart. I wouldn’t have hurt a hair on his genius head, would I, Fan?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ Park agreed. ‘But, clearly, Mr Grand, from what you’re saying, somebody would.’

  ‘Somebody would,’ Batchelor nodded.

  ‘One case at a time,’ Boulton said. ‘Artie Clinton is our priority, gentlemen. When our case comes up, Fanny and I are likely to be going away for rather a long time.’

  ‘If Williamson doesn’t get us first,’ Park chipped in.

  ‘Exactly,’ Boulton nodded. ‘We’re not rich, Mr Batchelor, Mr Grand, even allowing for our very healthy ticket sales. But we’ll give you our all if you get the man who killed Artie Clinton.’

  Grand looked at Batchelor and vice versa. Neither was sure they could handle the all that Ernest Boulton had in mind.

  ‘We’ll be in touch, la … gentlemen,’ Batchelor said. ‘In the meantime, I suggest you hail another cab. I can’t drive one of these things and we’ve already established that Matthew, though he can handle any horse you care to put in front of him, doesn’t know Wakefield Street from his elbow.’

  ‘You won’t let us down?’ Park squeezed Grand’s arm.

  ‘Not even lightly,’ Grand assured him, and they all got out. When Boulton and Park had rattled off into the starry, starry night in their newly hailed cab, Batchelor turned to Grand. ‘Better get this rig back to its rightful owner, Matthew. He’ll be worrying.’

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ Grand said, climbing up on to the perch again. ‘Where I come from, a man can get hung for horse-stealing.’

  ‘Hanged,’ Batchelor corrected him.

  ‘Whatever.’

  The town house of Lord Arthur Clinton was tucked away in Eaton Mews, behind the elegant Georgian facades that every investigator, journalist, policeman and enquiry agent knew covered a multitude of sins. Grand and Batchelor were together on this one, in the fond hope that they stood slightly more chance that way of battering down the brick wall they expected to meet.

  Lord Albert Clinton was a taller, leaner, less stooped version of his late departed brother. He had the same petulant mouth, the languid eyes, the thinning hair.

  ‘Enquiry agents?’ The man was dressed in black, puffing on a large cheroot. Servants in the Newcastle livery dashed hither and yon carrying books and bundles of letters, many of them bound in pink ribbon. ‘What are you enquiring about, specifically?’

  ‘Specifically, my lord,’ Batchelor was better with the aristocracy than Grand, whose leanings were altogether too Democrat, ‘your late brother’s demise.’

  ‘We’re not Catholic, you know,’ Clinton said, offering his visitors seats. A huge spaniel padded hotly into what had clearly been Lord Arthur’s study, panting and wheezing in the heat. He looked at Grand and Batchelor, didn’t like what he saw, and flopped across Lord Albert’s feet. ‘God, Fauntleroy, you weigh a ton. Cook’s been feeding you leftovers again, hasn’t she?’

  ‘I don’t follow, sir,’ Batchelor said.

  ‘The dog,’ Clinton explained. ‘Getting fat.’

  ‘No, I mean your reference to Catholicism.’

  ‘Well, isn’t that why you’re here? Looking into Artie’s suicide?’

  ‘Suicide?’ Grand spoke for the first time.

  ‘Gentlemen.’ Clinton freed one of his feet with difficulty and placed it gently on the spaniel’s back. ‘I don’t mean to seem uncooperative, but what the bally Hell has all this got to do with you?’

  ‘We have been engaged by a client,’ Batchelor said. ‘A client who believes that your brother was murdered.’

  Lord Albert paused before removing his other foot and placing it on the dog’s back. ‘The client’s name?’ he asked, his voice hard, his eyes furious.

  ‘I cannot divulge …’ Batchelor began, but Grand had other ideas.

  ‘Ernest Boulton,’ he said.

  Clinton got up, stepping off the spaniel with reasonable alacrity, but not until the animal had yelped in pain. ‘That degenerate!’ Lord Albert muttered. He looked at them both. ‘You know the wretch passed himself off as Artie’s wife, don’t you? Lady Clinton! It’s a good thing for Stella they don’t allow duelling in this country any more, or I should have called him out and put a bullet through his brain.’

  ‘Can we assume you didn’t approve of your brother’s friends, my lord?’

  ‘Assume what you like,’ Clinton said, pouring himself a brandy. ‘Oh, Stella does have a marvellous soprano voice, it’s true. But as for the rest of it …’

  ‘It’s the rest of it we’re concerned with,’ Grand told him.

  ‘Don’t be,’ Clinton said. ‘It’s all too late now. The police had charged Artie with unmentionable crimes that would make a docker blush … although, come to think of it, Eton and the Navy – de rigueur in both of those institutions. This is 1870, I suppose. But no, Stella and Fanny took the whole thing too far. Thrown out of Burlington Arcade more times than I’ve had hot dinners. The point is that Artie is dead. He’ll have to answer to a higher judge now.’ Clinton poin
ted solemnly to the ceiling.

  ‘The official line is scarlet fever,’ Grand said.

  ‘Yes, well, that’s just for public consumption. No. I believe this wretched Stella business had got Artie down.’

  ‘Did he say as much to you?’ Batchelor asked.

  ‘No, he didn’t, as a matter of fact. Au contraire. Seemed very combative. Wanted to sue everybody – the police doctor, the old fart of a magistrate, the police themselves.’

  ‘Would that be Chief Inspector Williamson?’ Grand asked.

  ‘Yes, I believe that was his name.’

  ‘Tell us, my lord,’ Batchelor followed up, ‘did Mr Williamson come here, to interview your brother personally?’

  ‘I believe he did, yes. I live across town, of course, so I’m unaware of the precise comings and goings. I know he raged about the whole thing. What was it he said? “Those bloody chief inspectors, they’re all the same.”’

  ‘Met a few, had he, over the years?’ Grand felt obliged to ask.

  ‘Haven’t we all?’ Clinton sighed, and Grand and Batchelor thought they ought to let that one go. ‘There is a rumour,’ Clinton went on, ‘a wicked, despicable lie, I assure you, that Artie is not actually dead at all, but that he has fled to Paris – the Bois de Boulogne to be precise – to escape the full rigour of the law. I have seen his body, gentlemen, and I can assure you that that is nonsense.’

  ‘My lord,’ Batchelor said, ‘I can see that you have much to organize here and you have been patience itself, but would it be in order for us to interview your late brother’s staff?’

  ‘Interview away, gentlemen. There aren’t many more skeletons hiding in the Pelham-Clinton cupboards, I don’t think. And if there are, I don’t want to know about them. Come on, Fauntleroy, walkies! Let’s run some of that fat off you.’

  The dog had not moved and didn’t now, simply rolling a yellowed eye at the detectives as they set off to stop the staff in their scurrying and find out what they knew.

  The late Lord Arthur’s staff had been as helpful as Grand and Batchelor could expect. The butler, Griswold, had been with the family since Queen Anne’s reign (or so it seemed to Batchelor) and was loyalty itself. Yes, the attack had come on suddenly. One minute he was right as rain; the next, dead. No, there was nothing funny about Lord Arthur. Yes, the police had come calling, but it was all a case of mistaken identity and Lord Albert was sorting it all out.

  Talbot, the gentleman’s gentleman, was altogether more forthcoming. Yes, Lord Arthur kept the company of dubious people. They came to Eaton Mews sometimes, wearing clothes that could only be described as extreme. Were they men or women? Who could say? Talbot only picked up snippets of gossip. Fanny, he knew, was a law student, so, surely, he had to be a man. But as a woman, he was very convincing. That American chappie, the one from Scotland, certainly believed he was a woman – Fanny, that is, not the American chappie. All in all, it was very confusing. And, strictly between Grand, Batchelor and Talbot, the gentleman’s gentleman was only too pleased to be looking for employment elsewhere, where men were men and women were glad of it.

  Grand paid particular attention to the cook. While she was overfeeding Fauntleroy, what else might she have been feeding his late lordship? While the American quizzed her minutely on Lord Arthur’s dietary intake on the days before his death, Batchelor quietly rummaged in her cupboards. There was nothing there – except perhaps tapioca, a personal hatred of his – that could be construed as poison.

  They had left the under-butler, Mason, until last, simply because he was up to his eyeballs in moving Lord Arthur’s personal effects. There was a will to be probated, bequests to be sent to various beneficiaries. Mason, it turned out, had no loyalty towards his late master; nor, in fact, to masters generally. Lord Arthur, apart from his little peccadilloes involving day dresses, was a declared bankrupt. The Eaton Mews house would have to go towards his debts and all of them, even Griswold, the pompous old arse-licker, would be out on the streets come Thursday.

  ‘He shook, you know,’ Mason muttered, careful that old Griswold shouldn’t hear. ‘Lord Arthur, in his last moments. Shook from head to foot. I know. I was there.’

  ‘You called the doctor?’ Batchelor asked.

  ‘I did. Bugger all he could do, of course. Family retainer, like all the rest of them. About as qualified as Fauntleroy, if you ask me. Stuck leeches behind His Lordship’s ears. “Violent delirium” he said, looking at Lord Arthur twitching and writhing on the bed. Well, I could see that. When he died, with the doctor right there, taking his pulse, the old quack said, “Scarlet fever”. Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous?’

  ‘So,’ Grand became confidential, leaning nearer to the man. ‘What’s your opinion on it all, Mr Mason? What do you think caused Lord Arthur’s death?’

  Mason became confidential too. ‘He was poisoned.’

  ‘Who by?’ Grand asked.

  ‘One of his Pretty Boys, I shouldn’t wonder. They should hang them all, if you ask me. Not natural. Not natural at all.’

  ‘Tell me, Mr Mason,’ Batchelor said. ‘The day of Lord Arthur’s death. Or perhaps the day before – did he have any visitors?’

  ‘No, not that I can … oh, wait. Yes, there was one bloke. Not the sort to have a calling card and I’d never seen him before. He was a policeman. From Scotland Yard.’

  THIRTEEN

  The lights burned blue in Alsatia that night and Grand and Batchelor were sitting alongside each other in their respective armchairs, looking at a blank wall. And this time, it really was blank.

  ‘I just can’t believe she did that,’ Grand said. The shock had still not passed.

  ‘Don’t fret yourself, Matthew,’ Batchelor clucked. ‘All the pieces are still here. You know Mrs Rackstraw never actually throws anything away. It’ll just take a little longer, that’s all.’ He was tacking the pieces of paper that Mrs Rackstraw had carefully placed in a pile back into position. ‘Actually,’ he said, brightly, looking over his shoulder at his despondent colleague, ‘she may have done us a favour in an odd sort of way; given us a chance to re-evaluate, reassess, recap.’

  ‘Re Mrs Rackstraw,’ Grand was lighting a cigar. ‘Williamson’s right, you know. She’ll have to go.’

  ‘Well, if Williamson thinks she ought to go, that’s a damned good reason to keep her, isn’t it?’

  ‘Point taken,’ Grand shrugged. ‘Tack away, James. You’re better at this sort of thing than I am.’

  For a while, Batchelor fussed around, holding the scraps of paper to the lamplight, turning them this way and that. Finally, when Grand was well into his second cigar and draining the last of his second brandy, order, of a sort, stood before him. Batchelor sat back down, heavily, and took a swig of his own neglected tipple. ‘Right,’ he said. He had a pen and yet more pieces of paper, still on a pad, to his right. ‘You first.’

  ‘Charles Dickens and his dark side.’ Grand was reading the papers now back on the wall.

  ‘He has a mistress in Nunhead,’ Batchelor said, adding scribblings as he spoke. ‘Name of Ellen Ternan.’

  ‘What do we know about her?’ Grand asked.

  ‘Nothing, other than what Wilkie Collins told us.’

  ‘She’s an actress.’

  ‘Never heard of her, though,’ Batchelor shook his head. ‘Can’t be very good.’

  ‘It’s how good she was in the sack that probably interested Dickens. You’re guessing she was the woman in the veil at the man’s funeral.’

  ‘Stands to reason,’ Batchelor said. ‘We need to find her.’

  ‘Nunhead, Collins said.’

  ‘Yes, and so did Butler, the groom.’

  ‘What’s in Nunhead?’ It was not a part of the country that Matthew Grand had knowingly come across.

  ‘Apart from Nell Ternan, not a lot,’ Batchelor told him. ‘It’s got a station and a cemetery. That’s about it.’

  ‘A backwater, then.’ Grand was thinking aloud. ‘Somewhere out of the way where he can stas
h his mistress.’

  ‘A woman,’ Batchelor said, in dark, meaningful tones. ‘Didn’t Dick Tanner raise that? Didn’t he tell you that there’s always a woman involved?’

  ‘In the general scheme of things, that’s likely.’ Grand blew a final smoke ring and stubbed out the remains of his cigar. ‘But in this case, we’ve got three of them.’

  ‘Nell Ternan, Georgy Hogarth …’

  ‘And Catherine Dickens, the wife scorned. And if you throw in Dickens, as we must …’

  ‘The eternal triangle becomes a square,’ Batchelor reasoned.

  ‘Actually a rhomboid, if I remember my Conic Sections from West Point.’

  ‘So what are you thinking?’ Batchelor asked.

  ‘They all love dear old Charles.’ Grand leaned forward, scanning the papers in front of him. ‘Chronologically, Catherine comes first in that Dickens married her. They may or may not at one time have been passionately in love.’

  ‘But Georgy, the little sister, is waiting in the wings. She has eyes for Charles as well.’

  ‘And becomes their housekeeper.’

  ‘And remains his housekeeper when big sister moves out.’

  ‘That seems to be something of a trend here, I notice.’ Grand was still trying to complete his understanding of the Englishman’s home life, which was so very different from that of the average American. ‘The Reverend Moptrucket had his sister-in-law stashed away in the kitchen, too.’

  Batchelor shrugged. He had not had that much experience of housekeepers, apart from those here in Alsatia, and surely they couldn’t be the norm.

  ‘Then along comes little Nell,’ Grand continued, ‘unless I’m mixing my characters too much.’

  ‘And Dickens falls for her. Was this, I wonder, before Catherine moved out or afterwards?’

  ‘It must have been before,’ Grand reasoned, ‘hence the need to keep her quiet. Dickens didn’t have a brass neck about mistresses like Wilkie Collins does.’

  ‘Even so,’ Batchelor was frowning as he spoke, ‘these three women would have a motive for killing each other – jealousy. But why kill Charles?’