A Metropolitan Murder (32 page)

Lizzie Hunt is awake. She clambers off the bed; her arm is swollen and she has to twist her body, counter to her natural inclination, in order to move herself without too much pain. She pulls the new shawl around herself, concealing some of her bruises, and opens the door into the hallway, walking slowly down the stairs.

D
R.
A
RTHUR
H
ARRIS
waits for the sound of the clock, sitting in his bedroom, fully dressed. It has, he realises, become a ritual with him that he should listen for the bell tolling two o'clock, before he leaves the house. Midnight, he muses, would be more poetic, if remaining unobserved were not a consideration.

There. The sound of the church bell, and the clock in the hall, barely a second apart. He allows himself a smile and creeps on to the landing, treading on the rug as softly as he can, conscious of the slightest creak of the floorboards. Indeed, although two o'clock is an inconsequential hour, there is something rather melodramatic in the way he sneaks downstairs upon tiptoe, bearing his solitary candle. It is done in a manner that would be quite suited to a pantomime clown, or the music-hall antics of ‘Burglarious Bill'.

But there is no audience, and that, of course, is precisely his intention.

‘Did you hear something?'

‘Clarrie, go back to sleep, will you?'

Dr. Harris frowns as he approaches the end of Doughty Street. He feels cold despite the thick cloth of his greatcoat, and the hansom, which normally waits for him by arrangement, is quite absent. He walks a little further in case the man is late, contemplating his options; the thought of proceeding the whole distance on foot is not appealing to a man of his years, and yet there is something equally unsatisfactory in the prospect of returning to his own cold bed. As he turns the corner, considering whether it would be wise to wait for a passing cab, he notices a figure loitering nearby, a tall, heavily built man, a labourer of some sort by the appearance of his clothes, a scarf wrapped around his face, and cloth cap on his head. The man is watching him.

Dr. Harris clutches his walking stick more tightly and hurries on, but the man walks over to him.

‘Sir?'

Harris stops moving, seeing that the man is bent on speaking to him, and turns nervously to look at him.

‘I have no money, I am sorry.'

The man shakes his head. ‘I ain't asking for any. I've a message.'

‘A message? My good man, I think you've mistaken me for someone else.'

‘About a little girl, what needs your attention.' Harris looks at him, intrigued, the skepticism vanishing from his face.

‘Did Mrs. F. send you?' The man nods.

‘Well,' replies Harris, visibly relieved by this communication, though still a little nervous, ‘I have lost my cab. Tell her I shall come tomorrow night. It is getting late.'

‘She said tonight. She ain't far, just down the road. Said I was to take you there.'

‘She is not at the . . . regular place?'

The man shakes his head. Harris thinks for a moment.

‘Very well, lead the way. I suppose it would be churlish to refuse her my assistance.'

The man says nothing, but begins walking eastwards along the road, indicating for Harris to follow. Harris does so readily enough, his walking stick tapping out a steady rhythm on the pavement.

In truth, there is a slight smile upon his face.

‘He's gone out again. I had a look in his room.'

‘Who?'

‘Who do you think, Ally? Himself.'

Alice Meynell sits up in bed; Clara White is pacing the attic room that they share.

‘What's it to you, anyhow?' says Alice.

‘Nothing, I just heard him go out, that's all.'

Alice sighs. ‘I wish you could just sleep. You're wearing me out.'

She says it in a kindly, humouring way, but Clara does not notice.

‘I'm sorry, I was just . . .'

‘Thinking about your mother?'

‘Maybe.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘No need for you to be sorry.'

Alice Meynell pauses, sucking her thumb as she ponders changing the subject. ‘You do know,' she says at last, ‘what he gets up to at nights?'

‘What?'

Alice frowns. ‘You mean you don't? I always thought you and him had been . . .'

‘Ally, I don't understand you.'

‘You know he likes his girls? Young ones and all.
That's why he disappears of an evening.'

Clara shakes her head. ‘That's just for his writing. That's how he finds girls for the refuge, talking to them and that.'

‘And “that” all right. You mean he's never done you?'

‘Ally!'

‘If you say so.'

‘Well, he ain't. Listen, it's all just gossip, that's all. I know what the girls at the refuge were like. All talk. You shouldn't pay any heed to it.'

‘Maybe you was just too ugly for him, eh?'

‘Ally, it's not funny. I won't hear it.'

Alice Meynell falls silent again, and when she speaks her voice seems more serious.

‘Look, Clarrie, I don't want you thinking I'm a liar.'

‘Ally, don't be like that. I just don't think . . .'

Alice interrupts her. ‘How do you think I got this job? It weren't a good character, I can tell you that much.'

Dr. Harris comes to a halt, standing in a narrow cobbled passage not far from Gray's Inn Lane. If there were sufficient light his besuited figure would look incongruous in such a place, a grimy back street, set at the rear of smoke-black tenements, littered with refuse. As it is, however, he can barely see the tall man a few yards in front of him.

‘Is it far?'

‘Just round the corner here.'

‘You said that five minutes ago. I swear we have gone round in a circle. I am not a young man, you know.'

The man turns round and walks back to him, so that he can just make out his face in the darkness.

‘I know.'

‘And I am not a fool.'

‘I know what you are.'

There is something cold in the man's voice, in his grim, monotonous delivery, that turns Harris's stomach. Instantly, some primitive instinct takes hold of the doctor; a sudden wave of fear floods his body, sweat pouring from his brow.

‘I was lying before,' says Harris hastily. ‘Here, I have five pounds in my pocket. It is yours, if you leave me be.'

The man smiles. ‘That's an odd reckoning. What's that to me?'

‘What do you want from me? I shall call out, I swear.'

The man shakes his head, reaching suddenly forward and grabbing Harris's mouth.

‘No, you shan't, you dirty old bastard.'

D
OUGHTY
S
TREET
.

Daylight streams into Mrs. Harris's room as her maid gently pulls back the curtains and opens the shutters. Mrs. Harris herself, bathed and dressed, is seated at her dressing table, selecting earrings from her jewellery box; she chooses a pair made of jade.

‘Is the master awake, White?'

‘No, ma'am, he ain't in his bed.'

‘Not in bed? What do you mean? Surely he is, therefore, awake.'

‘I couldn't say, ma'am,' replies Clara, emptying the liquid remainder of her mistress's bath into her pail, and applying a fresh rag to clean the metal.

Mrs. Harris nearly pricks her ear in annoyance, turning to stare at Clara. ‘Really,' she says, the tone of her voice conveying ineffable exasperation, ‘I beg you, for once speak plainly and sensibly.'

‘He ain't in the house, ma'am.'

‘Well, then, what time did he say he would be back?'

‘He didn't say, ma'am.'

Mrs. Harris puts down her earring, which she has still not fixed in her ears, and gives her maid-servant what she considers a stern and demanding look. ‘Now, I can hardly believe that. Surely he left us a note on his desk, or some such? You know that is his custom.'

‘There's no note, ma'am, and . . .'

‘What? Speak up, will you, girl?'