The Curse of Christmas (9 page)

“Now you can tell me something,”
said Dr Watson when the plates were cleared and he settled back
with a cup of strong black coffee in one hand and his calabash in
the other.

Mr Pike was in an understandably
ebullient and generous mood. “Ask away.”

“I was wondering about that
article you penned under the name of Agrippa. Was any of it
true?”

“Crossbones, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Despite what you may believe,
old chap, I don’t make things up, neither the social gossip nor the
supernatural stuff. I don’t claim
not
to embellish things
but I never invent things for the sake of it. I recount what my
sources tell me and allow the public to draw their own conclusions
using their own imagination which I admit to giving a good prod
with a big colourful stick.”

“Did you visit the cemetery to
verify the story?”

“No, of course not, why should
I? I’m not going to travel to Australia to verify what you just
told me about the Countess’s husband either. I deal in human
interest stories not historical fact. This table is my office, my
world. The stories come to me. Why would I want to travel all the
way to Southwark?” He gave a shudder.

“Who was your initial
source?”

“Gosh, you really are a stickler
for detail. I guess it comes from writing all those detective
stories. Are you thinking of investigating Crossbones for the Ghost
Club despite it being voted down last night?”

“Yes, I’m thinking about it.”
The lie came easily to his lips, so easily it surprised him, so
easily he decided to continue while he was on a roll. “It sounds
like a simple case. I hate the idea of the medical profession being
tainted all over again by accusations of murder-on-demand.”

“Oh, that’s right. You’re a
doctor by profession.”

“Yes, and as it happens, Dr
Gregory and I shared a hansom last night. We discussed your article
and toyed with the idea of staking out the cemetery one night to
catch whoever is digging up corpses. But there’s no point if your
story is untrue.”

“I see, so that’s your interest.
Well, it’s true as far as I know. I was in a tavern on the Strand
having dinner last week when I overheard a conversation between two
men at the next table. One of the men was describing how he was
passing through Southwark late at night and was solicited by a bit
of a slattern. She was a comely young thing despite the rags and
filth and he agreed to her price. She led him into the Crossbones
Cemetery, telling him it was her regular place, being nice and
private. He thought it would be a lark. He was following her when
suddenly she disappeared from view – she had stumbled into an open
grave. Not just a freshly dug empty grave but an old grave that had
been dug up – you see the difference? He hauled her out and while
she was rubbing her sprained ankle, she began grumbling how it was
the third grave she’d seen dug up like that in the last month.
Well, he ran out of that cemetery without even asking for a
refund!”

“That is hardly a reliable
source.”

“I agree and I would have
dismissed the story from my mind as a bit of braggadocio except
that a few days later I was chatting to someone who attends
suffragette meetings at the Unitarian church near to Crossbones and
they told me that graves are being disturbed.”

“Disturbed?”

“Yes, that was their exact word.
Disturbed. I asked what they meant by disturbed and they said they
had heard that graves were being dug up in the dead of night and
corpses snatched. Now, this source is not prone to braggadocio or
hysteria.”

“From the word hysteria I’m
guessing your source was female?”

“Yes, but very reliable.”

“May I ask the name?’

“Miss Lucy Quilligan. She is
secretary of the Southwark Suffragettes.”

“You know her personally?”

“Yes, she is a friend of my
younger sister. Her father was poor curate. I remember her as a
plain, straightforward, unhysterical member of her sex.”

Dr Watson drained his coffee
cup. “Dr Gregory suggested the grave-robbers were after teeth.
Teeth are quite sought-after items, apparently, more so than
corpses.”

“Really?”

“Yes, according to him there’s
money in teeth. But my understanding from what you have said is
that entire corpses are going missing, not just teeth.”

“Well, I couldn’t really say one
way or the other. I might go out to Southwark after all. There
might be another story in this.”

Dr Watson recalled Mycroft’s
warning and blanched. “Could you hold off until Dr Gregory and I
have staked out the cemetery? We don’t want to alarm whoever is
snatching corpses or teeth or whatever. I promise you can have the
exclusive story when we are done. I would consider it a great
personal favour.”

Langdale Pike understood all
about the mutual rubbing of backs. It was his lifeblood.
“Certainly,” he assured affably, “anything for a fellow member of
the Ghost Club.”

The Unitarian church was
frightfully cold and the Countess was glad she had worn her
Canadian mink coat. She had brought her maid with her so that she
could drop her off at the St Saviour Church afterwards; not that
she expected Fedir to have any news as yet but it was important to
know where he was lodging. The Countess planned to pay a visit to
the Temple Library at the same time.

The church door banged and
footsteps could be heard rushing down the aisle.

“Has it started yet?” Someone
carting a carpet bag and clad in a wool coat that smelled of wet
sheep sidled up to the Countess. It was Miss Lucy Quilligan.

“No, you’re just in time. We are
about to sing hymn 32.”

Vocal chords in the grip of icy
air and apathy always sound croaky. Discounting Reverend Paterson,
Deacon Throstle, Miss Quilligan, the Countess, and her maid, there
were only two actual mourners present - two young women, scantily
dressed and shivering through the hymnodia. One had her ankle
bandaged and was leaning heavily on the pew in front. The other one
kept wiping her nose on her sleeve and sniffing. Both were hatless
and neither shed any tears. Dr Watson was nowhere to be seen.

The Countess slipped some money
into the poor box as they forwarded out into a miserable mizzle of
rain which blurred the ugly brick tenement that overshadowed the
half acre of graves. Joff and Crick acted as pall-bearers and it
was almost a blessing to leave the Unitarian icebox and step into
the horrid little cemetery where the reverend dispatched a few
words as quickly as possible in a deadpan refrain devoid of
sentiment: Ashes to ashes, mud to mud…

The body, wrapped in hessian
sacking, was tipped into the grave and the coffin returned to the
church, presumably for the next corpse.

The Countess was the only person
to have an umbrella to herself. Xenia shared hers with Miss
Quilligan. Deacon Throstle did his best to shelter the reverend and
ended up getting drenched. The other two mourners seemed oblivious
to the rain which soaked through them to the bone.

Disappointment coursed through
the Countess’s veins, doing nothing to fire her enthusiasm for this
latest adventure, as she pictured Dr Watson curled up in a nice
warm bed. The scene was bleak, she was up to her ankles in mud, and
neither Viscount Cazenove nor Miss de Merville nor Mrs Aspen had
bothered to show up. Miss Quilligan was hardly worth all her
present discomfort. Still, she had to try to salvage something from
the morning. She gave Xenia a knowing wink and a nod, meaning for
her to engage Miss Quilligan in conversation to stop her fleeing
the moment the reverend finished speaking. In the meantime, she
would tackle the two shivering mourners. Money talked and the
Countess used it to make people listen.

“Was the dead girl a friend of
yours?” she asked the hatless pair as she caught up them near the
gate, out of earshot of the others.

“Waddayareckon?” growled the
sniffer offensively, wiping her dripping nose with the back of her
hand.

“Settle down, Molly,” tempered
the one with the bandaged ankle, who had been leaning heavily on
her friend. “Why would we be stood there in the bleeding rain
otherwise?”

“Yes, indeed,” said the Countess
pleasantly, reaching into the pocket of her cloak. “Here is
something for your trouble. It is traditional to have a drink to
remember the dear departed. You can buy yourselves some toasted
chestnuts and a cup of hot broth.”

The sniffer grabbed the money as
if she was frightened it might melt in the rain. “Cup of broth!
There’s enough here, Sukie, for a bleeding headstone an’ all!”

“What was your friend’s name?”
asked the Countess, trying to sound mildly curious rather than
nosy, though she knew the name already.

The sniffer eyed the quality of
the Countess’s mink coat as if for the first time. “Annie.”

“Did you know Annie?” quizzed
the one who limped.

“No,” admitted the Countess. “I
came to the funeral because I saw the coffin last night at the
suffragette meeting.”

The sniffer rolled her eyes. “A
bleeding heart!”

“Not really, I’m writing an
article for
The Quotidienne
about the Crossbones Cemetery.
If you know anything about the graves being dug-up…”

“A bloody reporter and a
bleeding heart!” condemned the sniffer. “Let’s go Sukie. Lean on me
so’s you don’t slip in the mud. Women don’t need the vote. What
they need’s a decent bloody job!”

“That will only come after you
get the vote,” asserted the Countess as the two young women turned
their backs.

“What would you know!” called
the sniffer. “For a bleeding reporter you don’t look like you’ve
worked a day in your life!”

“You’re right, I haven’t.
Reporting is merely a hobby, but that doesn’t mean I don’t
understand and don’t care. Same goes for Mrs Aspen and Miss
Quilligan and Miss de Merville and Viscount Cazenove.”

The two girls stopped in their
tracks and fell about laughing.

“Pull the other one! It’s got
bells on! Let’s go, Sukie.”

But Sukie hesitated and looked
back, a strange, uncertain look on her face. “Are you checking into
the body-snatching?”

“Yes, and I pay handsomely for
any information.”

“Let’s go, Sukie,” pressed the
sniffer, urging her friend forward. “We’ll catch our death.”

Sukie hesitated then let herself
be led away. The Countess stood under the shelter of her umbrella
and watched the two Winchester geese waddle off down the street.
She had a feeling she would see the one called Sukie again. And
then she shivered.

“Where’s your doctor
friend?”

The gravelly voice circumvented
the shiver. It was Joff. He’d left his co-worker to fill in the
grave on his own despite the fact the soil had turned to mud and
was much harder to shovel. Rain continued to bucket down.

“He will be along shortly. He
has been delayed.”

“You reckon he’s still
coming?”

“He will keep his word, rain or
shine.”

“I’ll be waiting for him under
the train track yonder,” he growled, indicating the viaduct that
flew over Redcross Way. “Hope you’re right,” he gargled
antagonistically before spitting out a gob of phlegm.

The Countess noticed that Xenia
and Miss Quilligan had taken shelter under the shallow porch of the
building directly opposite the gate, next door to the brothel with
the red door. Reverend Paterson and Deacon Throstle were nowhere to
be seen. She hurried through the rain toward the porch.

“My landau is parked at the
front of the church in the next street,” she addressed to Miss
Quilligan. “Can I give you a lift to somewhere?”

“Oh, yes, I forgot my umbrella.
I’m always in a frightful hurry. You can drop me at the back of the
Borough market. Follow Redcross Way under the railway viaduct and
keep going. Black Encre Publishing House is on Stoney Street. I
promised to pick up some more leaflets.”

“Have you held the position of
secretary of the Southwark Suffragettes long?” asked the Countess
after they had settled in the carriage.

“Just gone twelve months now. I
wandered by chance into a hall where Mrs Aspen was addressing a
small crowd one night. I had never heard of the notion of women’s
rights and had never dreamed of such things as the vote for women.
It startled me out of my ignorance. I was working in millinery at
the time, managing a shop for Madame La Bonne on Primrose Hill,
well-satisfied with my prospects, when my great-aunt died and left
me a small legacy. It was Madame La Bonne who gave me this green,
violet and white hat as a going away present.

Anyway, the legacy was not much
but it allowed me to be self-supporting and not a little daring. I
approached Mrs Aspen and boldly suggested that she appoint me
secretary of the Southwark branch to help with the campaign for
enfranchisement. Needless to say the position pays a pittance. I
work all hours but I have never been happier. I have always been a
well-organised sort of girl and quite frankly, a bit of a
bossy-boots. My father was a poor curate who believed that the meek
would inherit the earth, but women have been meek their whole
lives, for absolute centuries, and it has gotten them nowhere. The
only way to improve the lives of women is to force change.”

“You advocate violent
protest?”

“It depends what you mean by
violent. I believe in vigorous protest. Our voices must be heard.
Our grievances must be acknowledged. Our actions must be courageous
and our hearts strong. Our cause is noble and just and long
overdue. Is your foreign maid a serf?”

The Countess did not take
umbrage at the abruptness of the question; it was in character for
a strong-willed woman. “Serfdom was abolished in 1861, long before
I was born. She is my personal maid.”