The Angel Read online

  ‘That’s Mamie and Katie,’ George Sala murmured out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Charles’s daughters.’

  The great journalist stood with Grand and Batchelor on the corner of Great Smith Street, towards the back of the spectators, who all looked as if they had turned up for one of Mr Dickens’s famed performances, the ladies fluttering fans under their parasols. The Dickens daughters clung to each other, pale and tearful, but determined not to break down; it was what their papa would have wanted.

  ‘John Forster,’ Sala kept up the running commentary, ‘the tall one with the eyebrows and dundrearies.’

  ‘Dickens’s friend?’ Batchelor checked.

  ‘And—’ Sala aimed a well-placed spit into the gutter – ‘biographer. I understand he was also his go-between with publishers; a man of Dickens’s stature wouldn’t wrestle with a chimney sweep, if I may borrow a phrase from the late, lamented Mr Peel.’

  ‘I thought you were his biographer, Mr Sala,’ Grand said, a knowing look on his face.

  ‘I am unofficial, dear boy,’ the journalist told him. ‘That gives me a certain carte blanche. I also work faster than he does, so my version will be on the streets before his.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Grand asked. ‘The blubbing one.’

  ‘That’s George Dolby, Charles’s stage manager. Handled all his lecture tours.’

  ‘He seems pretty cut up,’ Batchelor said. ‘That other chap seems to be holding him up.’

  ‘The other chap is his son, Charley Dickens, apple of Charles’s eye. Hopeless writer, of course, but there it is. No, Dolby’s an odd one.’

  ‘In what way?’ Grand asked.

  ‘Any way you choose.’ Sala lit a cigar and tossed the match to the tarmacadam. ‘The man has an appalling speech impediment. Given to dancing the hornpipe in railway carriages. Charles found it all very endearing for some reason. I would have had him committed, myself. Very emotional, is George. I doubt you’ll get much out of him for a while.’

  ‘He seems to have managed to get himself a very attractive wife, nonetheless,’ Batchelor remarked.

  ‘Wife?’ Sala almost swallowed his cigar. ‘Dolby hasn’t got a wife.’

  ‘Well,’ Batchelor pointed. ‘There’s a rather slender and elegant woman walking alongside him. I can’t see who she is through that veil, and so I suppose she might well have a face like a rhinoceros, but the rest of her looks comely enough to make that moot.’

  Sala peered closer. ‘Who is that?’ he said. He closed his eyes and did some elementary arithmetic, using his fingers. ‘I really can’t place her. But she obviously is some distant member of the family, someone they couldn’t refuse entry.’

  ‘Could it be his wife, sneaking in?’

  ‘Not with a waist that size,’ Sala spluttered. ‘I wouldn’t say Catherine is fat, but she could make two of the mystery lady. No, it’ll be a cousin or something. But certainly not Mrs Dolby. Perish the thought!’

  ‘So, let me get this straight,’ Grand murmured in the rising hum of the crowd. ‘You think one of them murdered Dickens?’

  The three watched as Georgy Hogarth was helped down from the last carriage by Dr Beard. The last man out of the third carriage was Frederic Ouvry, Dickens’s solicitor. He looked as all solicitors look at funerals; pale, and mourning a good client gone west. Sala shrugged. ‘That’s what I’m paying you a goodly sum to find out,’ he said. ‘The children, no. They all loved their papa and this has come as a genuine blow to them, I’m sure. No, it’s those who are not here you should be interested in. And possibly Ouvry; I never trust the legal profession. Shakespeare was right when he said let’s kill all the lawyers.’

  ‘You’ve given us rather a wide field, Mr Sala,’ Grand felt obliged to point out.

  ‘Three carriages,’ Sala nodded. ‘That’s all Charles wanted. He’d always said that – no fuss, no feathers. So, there’s no Catherine, for instance. No servants, but you wouldn’t expect that. Oh, there’ll be plenty at the commemoration, of course. The abbey will be packed.’

  ‘It was only the other day he had breakfast with Mr Gladstone,’ Batchelor said.

  ‘And dinner with Mr Disraeli,’ Grand chimed in.

  ‘Then there’s the Prince of Wales and Leopold of the Belgians,’ Batchelor added.

  ‘Not to mention Mr Motley, the American ambassador.’ Grand felt he had to fight his country’s corner.

  ‘All right, gentlemen,’ Sala smiled. ‘You’ve convinced me. You’ve done your homework and you’re earning my over-generous retainer. Now all you have to do is catch me a killer.’

  There was a collective sigh from the crowd and the hats came off. The hearse rattled to the west door, pulled by dappled greys, snorting and tossing their heads in the heat. The pallbearers slid down from their perches noiselessly and prepared to manhandle the hearse’s contents through the side door.

  Something caught Sala’s eye and he whipped the cigar out of his mouth before swiping an urchin around the head. ‘Get that cap off, you little ruffian. There’s a great man in that coffin.’

  The boy winced at the pain of the slap and stood, bareheaded and shamefaced, cowering before the gentleman, muttering how sorry he was. Grand and Batchelor, however, were watching something else. As the bearers disappeared into the darkness with their sad load, there was a commotion at the west door. A verger was trying to close it as the mighty organ thundered in the vast cavern of the abbey. He was struggling with a top-hatted man and some of the conversation drifted to Great Smith Street.

  ‘But I’m a close friend,’ they heard. ‘I’ve just forgotten my ticket, that’s all. I could’ve gotten in through another door, you know.’

  But the verger was insistent and the west door closed. There were boos and hisses from the crowd nearest to the would-be intrusive ghoul.

  ‘Wasn’t that …?’ Batchelor frowned, pointing.

  ‘… an American accent,’ Grand nodded. ‘Yes, it was. Not one of my countrymen’s finest moments.’

  ‘No matter,’ Batchelor said. ‘Looks like he’s about to have his collar felt by one of A Division’s finest.’

  A large policeman in his new Roman helmet was marching resolutely towards the American, who still seemed to be trying to find a way in. The cigar dropped from George Sala’s mouth and he began patting his coat feverishly. ‘Never mind the bloody American,’ he snarled. ‘That little ruffian’s half-inched my wallet!’

  There were three possibilities, and it was an enquiry agent’s law that not until the third would James Batchelor strike lucky. He’d left his wallet at home and had kept his eyes peeled all evening. This was Shadwell, where the river, dark and deadly, lapped the stair and the lighters swung at anchor, their lights blurred in the Thames fog.

  The heat of the day still clung to the alleyways, their cobbles scummed with grease, and yet more of it blasted out through the open doors of the Brass Monkey. A painted lady jostled Batchelor on the threshold and smiled at him, her teeth black, her breasts threatening to escape from her bodice. She smelled of beer, cheap perfume and unwashed clothing in almost equal measure; the scent of the street. ‘You good-natured, dearie?’ she purred, insinuating herself against him with practised hips.

  ‘Most of the time,’ Batchelor smiled back, ‘but not tonight. I’m looking for a man.’

  The harlot backed away. ‘Bit o’ brown, eh? Well, what you do in your own time is up to you, o’ course. But believe me,’ she peeled her blouse down to reveal her right breast, ‘you don’t know what you’re missing.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve a pretty good idea,’ Batchelor said, and sauntered down the steps to the greasy floor. The Monkey was full that night. There were two ships in from the West Indies and the place was crammed with blacks and mulattos, most of them the worse for drink, stumbling over each other at the bar. Girls glided from lap to lap, tickling ears, licking necks, lifting wallets. Above the row, the reedy screech of a piano accordion and the rattle of bone dice could be heard. There were whispered conversations in cr
amped corners, deals done in darkness. But there he was, propping up the bar as usual. That waistcoat and that cravat were unmistakeable. And, true to form, there was a girl on each arm.

  Batchelor fought his way through a crowd of lascars and stood staring at him.

  ‘Well, of course,’ the man at the bar was saying, ‘there was absolutely nothing I could do. Science has not yet vouchsafed that particular secret. I remember it vividly. “Barney,” he said – and these were the last words he ever spoke – “Barney, I go to my grave knowing that I could not have been in better hands.”’

  The girl between Barney and Batchelor frowned. ‘’Ere, I thought he was a German.’

  ‘Who?’ Barney took a massive swig of his beer.

  ‘Your patient.’ The other one nudged him in the ribs. ‘The Prince Consort.’

  ‘Oh, he was, he was,’ Barney assured them. ‘But all that heel-clicking stuff was just for the public, you know. Now,’ he put his arms around both girls, ‘that really is enough about me. How are you girls going to make a middle-aged man very happy?’

  The smile froze on his face as he caught sight of James Batchelor. He dropped the women, spun on his heel and dashed for the back door, hacking his way through the lascars and treading on somebody’s dog in the process. The animal yelped in pain and yelped again as James Batchelor jumped over him.

  The night air was warm, but at least the smell of the Monkey had not followed him. The alley was deserted except for a couple thrusting against each other in a doorway. Batchelor tipped his hat to them and crashed around a corner, the squeal of cats and a human scream telling him that Barney had come to grief. Around that corner, where the tenements rose black and forbidding into the night, Matthew Grand was standing with one boot on the neck of a collapsed tippler, who lay face down, groaning.

  ‘Barney, Barney,’ Batchelor helped the man up. ‘When are you going to learn?’

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Mr Batchelor.’ Barney tried to grin, but his mouth was full of something from the gutter and he had to spit that out first. ‘I didn’t recognize you.’

  ‘Liar,’ Batchelor said, picking up Barney’s hat and handing it to him. ‘You’ve met my friend Mr Grand, I see.’

  ‘Yes,’ Barney scowled. ‘I have bumped into him from time to time.’

  ‘We’d like a word,’ Grand said, and rammed his man up against the wall.

  ‘Look, I’m clean,’ Barney assured them. ‘Straight up. Ever since that unfortunate business, I haven’t practised. I swear.’

  Grand rummaged in the man’s coat pocket. String. Fluff. Tuppence ha’penny. Then he tried the waistcoat. ‘Ah,’ he smiled. ‘Bonanza.’ He peered to read the dog-eared card in the bad light. ‘Dr Barnwell Johnson, MD. Ladies’ Troubles A Speciality.’ He looked at Batchelor. ‘You’re a literary man, James,’ he said. ‘What is wrong with that sentence?’

  ‘Well,’ Batchelor stroked his chin, wrestling with the problem. ‘Let’s see … I’ll assume the name is correct, but the credentials certainly aren’t; not since you were struck off the medical register, eh, Barney, for conduct unbecoming. But it’s the last bit that bothers me, Matthew.’

  ‘Me too,’ Grand nodded, frowning solemnly.

  ‘You see, abortion – and there’s no nice way of putting that – is illegal in this great country of ours.’

  ‘And ours,’ Grand nodded, not wishing to be outdone.

  ‘That’s on account of people like you preying on unfortunates and quite possibly killing them into the bargain.’ Batchelor wasn’t smiling now.

  ‘All right,’ Barney sighed, his shoulders slumped in defeat. He rummaged in his trouser pocket. ‘I haven’t got much.’

  ‘We don’t want your money,’ Grand told him. ‘What would an enquiry agent do with money, when all’s said and done?’

  ‘What we want,’ Batchelor tapped Barney’s temple and made him flinch, ‘is what’s inside there, before the gin washes it all away.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Batchelor checked that the alleyway was empty before he carried on. ‘You may have been struck off, Barney, but I happen to know that before that catastrophic occasion, you knew your stuff.’

  ‘You flatter me.’ Barney half bowed. ‘But, yes, as a matter of fact, I do.’

  ‘Let’s suppose,’ Grand said, ‘that we have a dead man.’

  Barney looked at him in surprise. He didn’t like the direction this conversation was travelling.

  ‘A man,’ Batchelor joined in, ‘who to all intents and purposes has died of a stroke.’

  ‘How old is this man?’ Barney asked.

  ‘Fifty-eight,’ Batchelor said, perhaps a little too quickly. ‘Give or take.’

  ‘To all intents and purposes?’ Barney queried.

  ‘Could there be another cause?’ Grand came right out with it.

  Barney thought for a moment. ‘There could be,’ he mused. ‘Who’s the doctor?’

  Grand chuckled. ‘Come on, Barney,’ he said. ‘You know better than that.’

  ‘No, it’s just that … well, there are, or so I’m given to believe, some rather unscrupulous people in my profession. If your doctor is bent, he could say what he liked, couldn’t he? And who would be the wiser?’

  ‘Yes, we’ve considered that,’ Batchelor said. ‘Are still considering it, in fact. But we want to get behind the medical mumbo-jumbo. For a bent doctor to get away with a wrong diagnosis like that, he’d have to have some science on his side. In case somebody asked some awkward questions, that is.’

  ‘Somebody like us,’ Grand underlined the point.

  ‘Hm,’ Barney was lost in thought. ‘I’m not sure I can help.’

  Grand sighed, holding up the ex-doctor’s card. ‘I wonder who’s on duty at the Yard, tonight, James; that nice Chief Inspector Williamson?’

  ‘Laudanum,’ Barney blurted out. ‘That’d be my best guess.’

  ‘Laudanum?’ the detectives chorused.

  ‘Doesn’t Mrs Rackstraw take that for her gout?’ Grand asked.

  ‘I used to have it when I was a toddler,’ Batchelor remembered. ‘Mama swore by it.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Barney, ‘but your mama was trying to get you to go to sleep, I assume, not kill you. Although …’

  ‘Oh, ha,’ Batchelor snorted.

  ‘Better let us do the jokes, Barney,’ Grand advised. ‘I’m still holding all the cards,’ and he waved one in the air. ‘Laudanum’s a poison, right?’

  ‘It isn’t a poison as such.’ Barney struck a pose, his chin in the air, his thumbs in his waistcoat sleeves. ‘But, like so many things in our pharmacopeia …’ all three men looked at each other, impressed that he could get the word out both accurately and first time, ‘given in the wrong quantities, it’s as sure as a bullet. Surer, in fact. A bullet can miss. An opiate will get you every time, enough of it.’ He became confidential. ‘What you’ll have to do is find out what your corpse had to eat in the days leading to his death. And what the symptoms were beforehand.’

  ‘What should they have been?’ Batchelor asked. ‘In laudanum poisoning, that is.’

  ‘Well,’ Barney ruminated, enjoying himself now, as if he were back in his old surgery again, before …

  ‘In about half an hour after ingesting the dose, headache and weariness. Lethargy, followed by sleep. The patient may appear a little flushed, the breathing would be slow. The pupils would be contracted and the skin warm and moist …’

  ‘Which it would be anyway.’ Grand was thinking aloud. ‘He was in a stuffy room on a hot day.’

  ‘Eventually, the face becomes pallid, the breathing difficult to detect. The actual cause of death is slow asphyxiation and heart failure.’ He looked from one detective to the other, both of them locked into their thoughts. When neither of them said anything, Barney went on. ‘Of course, there’s a snag.’

  ‘There is?’ Grand asked.

  ‘The smell and the taste. Both absolutely revolting.’

  ‘How revolting?’ Batchelor queri
ed. ‘Would everyone find it so?’

  ‘Well, not so much the smell, perhaps, which is poppies, but the taste is horrible.’

  ‘I remember,’ Batchelor grimaced. ‘Mama always used to give me a spoonful of jam afterwards, to take away the taste.’

  ‘It’s quite common in suicide,’ Barney told them, ‘but I’ve never met it in murder.’ He chuckled. ‘And if I know you boys, that’s what we’re talking about, I assume.’

  Grand smiled, patting the man on the cheek. ‘You don’t know us, Barney,’ he said, ‘not like we know you.’ He evaded the former physician’s attempt to get his card back. ‘No,’ Grand said, ‘I think I’ll hang on to this. You never know when a good doctor is going to come in handy.’

  They took a cab back to Alsatia, one of the few still running at that time of night, its lights bobbing over the cobbles of the dark streets.

  ‘We know Dickens ate with Gladstone and Disraeli in the days before he died.’

  ‘Hedging his political bets, I’d say,’ Grand commented. ‘And with the Prince of Wales and the King of Belgium.’

  ‘King of the Belgians,’ Batchelor corrected him.

  ‘Whatever,’ Grand brushed the nicety aside. ‘I’m assuming they’re all right; no poisoning symptoms, I mean.’

  ‘I think we might have heard about it by now,’ Batchelor said, ‘considering the status of those gentlemen. And besides, if Barney is right and if it is laudanum, the timing is all wrong. It takes a matter of hours – or less, if I understood him right. So it can’t have been in any of those dinners. He would have died on the way home, or at the most shortly after he got back.’

  ‘So,’ Grand leaned back as the hansom rattled under Temple Bar. ‘One of us is going to have to go back to Georgy Hogarth.’

  ‘The housekeeper.’

  Grand nodded. ‘She’s the only one likely to have a working knowledge of what Dickens ate in the run-up to his death. And the cook, I guess.’

  ‘Well, that has to be you,’ Batchelor shrugged.

  ‘Why me?’ Grand asked.