Lawless and The Devil of Euston Square (4 page)

The terrier looked away from the body, subservient again. “Never saw him before in my life, sir.”

All of a sudden, the night porter piped up. He gaped at the corpse, then he stood up, clapping his hands in surprise.

“Hulloah!” he said. “That ain’t him! When me and your inspector was dragging him in, I didn’t see it, I was that upset.” Drunk, you mean, I thought to myself. “No, sirs, I didn’t see it in the dark and the wet and all, but that ain’t the same fellow. My man had these intensitive eyes. Trust those eyes with your life, so you would. I’d know him anywhere. This! This is a different codger entirely.”

EUSTON EVENING BUGLE

9th November, 1859

LAST TRUMP SOUNDS FOR LONDON

The metropolis is doomed. Veteran reformer, Mr Edwin Chadwick, prophesies the imminent demise of the capital in his pamphlet published today, “Smell is Disease.”

How wonderfully smell concentrates the mind. For years Londoners have been dying in their cohorts of cholera, typhus and worse. Yet it took the “Great Stink” of last summer to convince panicked parliamentarians to stomach the cost of the Sewers Bill. Poor Mr Disraeli, clutching a handkerchief to his sensitive nose as he ran from the chamber!

Still, our reliance on Progress and Capital to cure our maladies seems increasingly vain. Thus far, the Metropolitan Board of Works’ monumental expenditure has effected only an embarrassment of traffic jams and a shortage of bricks. The stink lingers on.

DEVILS AT EUSTON SQUARE

Last night, a water-powered crane—called an “hydraulic devil”—burst outside Euston Station, killing a vagrant. A sizeable crowd applauded, as passengers from the late train were greeted with an impromptu fountain. Inspector Wardle of Scotland Yard insists that readers of the
Bugle
may go safely about their business. Nonetheless, the use of hazardous machinery in defiance of the builders’ strike must be cause for alarm.

Another alarming local development sees the Metropolitan Railway sink a preliminary shaft at Euston Square next month. In approving the short-sighted plans of the Hon Mr Charles Pearson, championed by that misguided publication, the Clerkenwell Horn, the Traffic Select Committee has ignored the
Bugle
’s manifestly superior proposal. Our “Crystal Way” would have spanned the city with road, rail and pedestrian tiers, triumphantly solving congestion in a feat of engineering to make the world gasp.

“Shameless profiteering will lead London to the same dismal end as Rome and Babylon,” predicts Mr Chadwick, in his Sanitary Committee pamphlet. “We stand in need of drains, not trains.”

The
Bugle
awaits with curiosity the collapse of tunnels, annihilation of property, and subterranean fumigations that must inevitably result from Pearson’s infernal undertakings.

ROYAL CELEBRATIONS

None of which can dampen the frolics of the younger royals. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, returned to Windsor Castle this morning.

Following a spirited start to his university career, rumour has it that he is to be created a duke. Tonight Prince “Bertie” sets aside a raucous social schedule to celebrate his eighteenth birthday with the Queen and the Prince Consort.

Amongst such banquets and honours, may the ills of the capital remain to him but a distant murmur.

***

Anonymous Telegram, 8th November, “To Roxton Coxhill & His Rotund Friend’:
guy fawkes was a genius

***

THE CADAVER

It was perhaps unwise to take a cab, especially as my wage was only nineteen shillings a week, lodgings not included, and Wardle had made no mention of reimbursement, but I had no idea what an interest London cabmen take in matters that don’t concern them. I didn’t feel I could ask the man to help me shift the corpse; at least, not without a substantial tip. Fortunately, Worm & co. offered their services.

Worm organised his chums with a grim efficiency, and a sort of tact, which made my earlier eagerness seem all the more inappropriate. He called upon Numpty the matchseller, and the Professor, a precocious tyke with an upturned nose. How three children and I lugged a stiff, wet corpse from the hut to the cab and the cab to the hospital without attracting the suspicion of morbid bystanders I will not relate, but Worm and his tired companions made a fitting sort of cortège. The Professor put on as brave a face as you could wish to see; but I did repent of involving them in such dark business when I saw the poor wee fellow brush away a tear.

Worm refused the coins I offered. “On the house, Watchman,” he said with a wink. “Just bear us in mind, eh? Taxing time you’ve had tonight. Teetering on top of that thing like a tomtit up a tree. We was that worried, we could barely look. Good luck, eh, Watchman.”

While I waited for Simpson, uncomfortable in my vigil, I took the notion to check the dead man’s pockets. There was nothing to identify him. No personal effects. Just a couple of coins. There was no more I could think of to do.

I sat down, dead tired of a sudden. The last time I had been in hospital was when I gashed my thumb in father’s workshop. My recollection of the Edinburgh Royal Free was incomparably bright and clean beside this dark, shabby locality.

Twenty minutes later, a corpulent man with starched cuffs breezed in.

“Another cadaver? Wonderful.
Caro data vermibus
. Flesh given to the worms. Ca, da, ver, you see. It’s an acronym, of sorts.” Simpson glanced up at me for the first time. He raised his eyebrows at my sodden clothing, then turned back to the corpse. “Not a classical scholar, I take it? Never mind. You’re Wardle’s new man, are you?”

I coughed uncertainly.

He made the briefest examination, glancing at the face, the chest and especially at the feet, nodding knowledgeably. It was hard to credit that this informed him of anything. “What’s the purpose behind bringing me a tramp?”

“He’s dead. Is that not sufficient?”

“People die every day, Constable. That’s not reason enough to waste my time. Wardle rarely requires inquests for vagabonds. What is it he wants to know?”

I frowned, recollecting my instructions. “When and how he died.”

“Let us not be coy, Constable. If you wish, we shall lay bare his innards. If not–”

“I do not need to know what he ate yesterday, if that is what you mean.”

“Yesterday?” he laughed. “This fellow did no eating yesterday. But come, have you a specific query?”

I restrained myself from a sharp reply. “How did he die, man?”

“Bruising. Severe. To head and chest. Internal bleeding.” He thought a moment. “I would hazard that cerebral failure preceded cardiac, but it’s impossible to be sure, so long after the fact.”

I stared at him. “What caused these injuries? The man was involved in an accident. I want to know what happened.”

“I am a doctor, Constable, not a clairvoyant.”

“Was violence done to him?”

“I cannot say. The bruising suggests that he fell heavily, but I cannot rule out the use of blunt instruments.”

“I see. When did he die?”

He wafted a hand through the air. “We cannot know exactly.”

I mustered my patience. “Could you see your way to giving an estimate, doctor?”

“If that will suffice.”

“It will have to.”

“In my opinion, this man died close on one week ago.”

“One hour ago, you mean?”

“I said one week, Constable, and I meant one week.”

I looked down at the cold, grey face. I believe my heart started to beat faster. “Dr Simpson, the accident – the incident – took place barely two hours past.”

“As you will. I have given you my professional opinion.”

“On what do you rest that opinion?”

“To explain such things to laymen like yourself can be rather tiresome.”

“I would appreciate an attempt.”

He checked his pocket watch in irritation and appeared to come to a decision. “In these uncommon circumstances, we may be able to confirm the time of death. Can you spare a quarter hour?”

Outside the hospital, he hailed a cab. We hurtled through the lamplit byways, past the Brunswick Square constabulary, between the Foundling Hospital and Gardens, all the way to the Free Hospital on the Gray’s Inn Road. He paid the fare without a word, which I was glad to see, as my pockets were bare.

Strolling in as if he owned the place, Simpson bustled me through tortuous corridors, signally less kempt than the establishment we had just left. He moved rapidly for such a large man, and we arrived in an oppressive dormitory, filled with groaning and moaning. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dark, I made out dreadful shapes, cramped close together in an atmosphere that smacked of the grave.

“Ah, Bunny,” Simpson greeted the portly matron. “Fetch me the ward book. I want to check a time of death from last week. Beggar’s name escapes me. But I do recall he had a club foot.”

“That’ll be Shuffler, sir,” the woman nodded obligingly. “The tosher, that good Mr Skelton brought in.”

“I believe you’re right, Bunny. He certainly smelt like a sewer.”

As she retreated to a side room, Simpson glanced at his watch again and tutted. He addressed me sharply. “I would place the man’s death last Thursday evening.”

“You’re convinced it is the same man?”

“My recollection of your man’s odour may be circumstantial evidence, but the club foot, you will grant, is hard to refute. If he was alive to suffer the accident of which you speak, it was a miracle beyond belief. You see, I visit this ward on Thursday mornings, and I saw your man here, Thursday last. He had already suffered the injuries that killed him. He was quite at death’s door, I tell you, and suffering rather. Even without the present evidence of nascent putrefaction, I would doubt that he lived through that night. Bunny will look up the details. Kindly inform the college hospital whether the Yard will require the body, else they will deal with it as normal.”

“Doctor, I need to know how the man died. You’re telling me that tonight’s events had nothing to do with it. What am I to think?”

THE SECOND PERIOD

(1860)

THE BUGLE – LETTER TO ROXTON COXHILL – THE WILDERNESS
THE THEFT – NOBODY TO BLAME – COVERT INVESTIGATIONS
THE CLERKENWELL CLOCKMAKER – BAD BUSINESS
THE MODERN AGE – THE LIBRARIAN – GIVE IT UP
A MESSAGE

EUSTON EVENING BUGLE

30th June, 1860

ALL IN DANGER OF BEING BURIED ALIVE

The city’s influence stretches from Suez to Saskatchewan, and from beneath the Thames to the Himalayan heights. Yet these far-flung victories, claims Mr Edwin Chadwick, are outweighed by shameful deteriorations here at home.

The
Bugle
accepted Mr Chadwick’s challenge to tour the Empire’s least salubrious frontier – our own East End.

Cruel irony lurks in Green Street and Pleasant Place. A century back, the names may have been apt, as the last of the Huguenot fugitives reared dahlias in summer houses laced by Virginia creeper. Today this antheap of alleys is lined by ruinous tenements reeking with abominations. The wells of Clerkenwell are poisoned and the only greenness in Bethnal Green is that of putrefaction. One alley sees eighteen families served by a rotten pump, ruined with rusty nails, which functions weakly for twelve minutes a day, save Sundays. The struggle for this tap makes for battles every bit as bitter as Balaclava.

An Inspector of Nuisances took exception to Mr Chadwick’s report that a shed of sixty cows stands against a shoemaker’s house whose children are dying of putrid fever. Pigs are also kept close by. This Inspector declared vehemently that there are but fifty cows, that the shed is at least eighteen feet from the house, and that it is many moons since pigs were kept there. The cost of bribing such soulless functionaries is negligible to the miserly landlords who prosper thereby, little troubled by continual deaths. Are the wonderful sanitary schemes, which taxpayers are funding, nothing more than costly failures?

With what abandon, meanwhile, Parliament sanctions daredevil schemes such as Charles Pearson’s diabolical railway. Pickaxes, hammers and steam drills make a mayhem of the New Road, and those who have nothing watch even the little they have – their homes – swept away. The police turn a blind eye to the Local Management Act, and thousands resort to illegal lodgings, teeming with disease and death.

INDECENCIES OF PROGRESS

Beneath a poisonous mound of ill-built walls, through which weeps dank, unwholesome matter, Mr Chadwick showed us a family cowering in a windowless dungeon. Naked but for black rags across their middles, in darkness at the height of noon, they had not the means or inclination for the most ordinary observations of decency. So continues the round of vice, filth, and poverty, destitution without parallel in Calcutta or Peking. There is nothing picturesque in such misery, however our popular novelists may depict it.