The Problem of the Missing Miss (31 page)

“Ned? I didn't ask him, knowing his feelings on the subject.” Lord Richard frowned. “Now that you mention it, I thought I saw him at the hotel.”

“Oh yes, I observed him here myself on Saturday,” Mr. Dodgson said. “I thought it odd at the time, but perhaps he is here to support Lady Patricia in this difficult time. Perhaps you can send Mr. Upshaw to find him, Lord Richard, and see that he is given a seat in the Visitors' Section. I am sure he would come, if he were invited.”

“Charles,” Mr. Barclay asked, eyeing his old friend suspiciously, “what are you up to?”

“The end of the story, of course,” Mr. Dodgson said, and went down the stairs and out of the Rectory, to stroll through the growing crowds and admire the outrageous architecture of the Pavilion.

CHAPTER 29

The Royal Pavilion was the chief attraction of Brighton. Its bulbous towers loomed over the surrounding cottages. None of the blocks of houses built to accommodate the Prince Regent's courtiers was allowed to overshadow this enormous tribute to Chinoiserie that had begun life as a simple farmhouse. Having bought the building to enjoy the rustic life, the Prince Regent proceeded to expand and elaborate it, until the modest farmhouse disappeared under a welter of vaguely Oriental ornamentation, inside and out.

The Prince Regent's garish extravagance was not to the taste of the Prince Consort, and what Albert disliked, Victoria loathed. Since the Pavilion had been sold, the building had been used for everything from a concert hall to a banqueting hall to a paying teashop. The public was allowed to traipse all over the parquet floors on which the feet of royalty had trod. The figured wallpapers and gaudy paintings had been allowed to disintegrate to the point where there had been mutterings about removing the entire structure as a blight and an eyesore.

The artistic clique was ignored. No one intended to do such a foolish thing! The Royal Pavilion was the very symbol of Brighton, appearing on everything from painted china to souvenir shells. No one left Brighton without some replica of the Royal Pavilion tucked away in their luggage.

The Pavilion had originally been built on a small farm that lay just outside the village of Brighthelmstone. As the building expanded, the farm became a small park; when the town engulfed the Pavilion, the park became a playground, fenced in decorously to keep the vulgar at a reasonably safe distance, but opened to the public on such occasions as the protestation meeting on this August evening.

The day had progressed, with rainclouds no more than a wisp or two in the sky at dusk. As the handbills had been passed around, so had word-of-mouth. The protestation meeting looked to be a good show, and a free one, and as such, it drew not only the transient residents of Brighton but the permanent ones as well.

By six o'clock on the Monday evening, the population of the Pavilion lawn had swelled to include visitors and residents of Brighton as well as those of the surrounding towns. The Brighton Constabulary had had to pull every officer in to control the crowds. The refined visitors of Hove clamored for seating, to hear the shocking revelations promised by the
Pall Mall Gazette.
Mr. Dodgson's friends from Eastbourne were there, as were the members of Dr. Doyle's Portsmouth Literary and Scientific Society. As many members of Parliament were spending their holidays on the south coast of England, they insisted on attending, and were to be massed in evening dress on the platform, their wives and daughters to be seated below them on the small wooden chairs provided by the borough of Brighton. Tucked away beside the platform were the gentlemen of the Press:
The Times, The Evening Standard, The Globe, The Manchester Guardian,
and, of course, the
Pall Mall Gazette,
whose editor in-chief, the redoubtable W. T. Stead, sat defiantly on the platform with the illustrious speakers. Inspector Wright stood at one end of the Press Section, and Inspector MacRae glared at the crowd at the other end.

No fog marred the evening; only a light breeze coming off the water lent a chill to the atmosphere that would undoubtedly be chased away by the fiery rhetoric to come. Light was provided, not only by the gaslights of the park, but by torches, firmly embedded in the ground.

The paid seats were filling up nicely, with only one rank, in the very front, vacant. When asked, all the usher could say was that those were “reserved.” By whom? The usher could not say.

Around the seats, those who could not or would not spare a shilling stood, waiting for the speakers. Until the meeting began, they were willing to watch whoever else was on hand to entertain them. The Jolly Jokers did especially well, following brisk patter with brisker acrobatics and a trumpet flourish or two. One by one the dignitaries filed into the park from the Pavilion itself. There was a hum of expectation in the air.

The crowd was by now ready for anything. The buskers had been at their work, rallying the crowd with parodies of popular songs. The Salvation Army's brass band had rent the air with renditions of hymns, enthusiastically sung by those who knew the words and hummed by those who didn't.

The program, as finally revised and printed, listed the speakers in the order of their importance, with General William Booth vying for prominence with Lord Richard Marbury. The famous petition rested on a table to one side of the platform, with the general's staunch wife, Catherine, a famous speaker in her own right, in charge of collecting the signatures of anyone who wished to add their name to the list of those who supported the Criminal Amendment Bill.

There was a roar of appreciation as the diminutive and dapper Dr. Sullivan took the podium and the choir of St. Peter's Church filed through the gate that led from the lower regions of the Pavilion to the lawn, to await the rising of the baton. The Salvation Army's trumpet-and-tuba band joined forces with the Brighton Orchestral Society, and the crowd roared out

Onward, Christian soldiers,

Marching as to War,

With the cross of Jesus

Going on before!

The protestation meeting had officially begun.

The dignitaries were seated on the platform (which did not give way under the collective advoirdupois, although it did sag a bit). Those who were knowledgeable applauded Lord Richard Marbury as he mounted the platform, his fair hair drooping over one eye. There was another massive roar at the sight of General Booth, in his quasi-military uniform, his white beard and haggard face giving him the look of an Old Testament prophet who had somehow been transported to Sandhurst.

The ladies were seated with great ceremony on the chairs below the platform. Lady Patricia Marbury and her delicate-looking daughter took their places beside Mrs. Barclay and the wife of the Lord Mayor, their pale dresses making a spot of color agains the unrelieved black and brown of the older ladies. Behind them, Mrs. Doyle, in her tartan traveling suit, sat with Kitty and Nanny Marsh. Mr. Dodgson remained with those standing behind the seated ladies, while Dr. Doyle, having greeted his Portsmouth friends and placed his wife among the honored guests, joined his mentor.

“Dr. Doyle,” Mr. Dodgson said, as the Salvation Army band ceased its exertions momentarily, “I would like you to find our athletic young friend, Billy, and bring him here to me. We may have need of him before the night is over.”

There was a murmur as the Reverend Mr. Barclay stood up, a sheaf of papers in his hand, to pronounce the Invocation that would begin the protestation with a prayer. The gentlemen of the Press readied themselves.

Then, just as Mr. Barclay was about to announce the first speaker, the crowd began to roar again, this time with laughter. Mrs. Jeffries, in her favorite purple (this time, satin, trimmed lavishly with ivory lace), marched down the aisle leading her girls, all in their finest white dresses. With enormous dignity they filed into the very first rank of seats that had been reserved for them by Someone (who? no one could say), and sat down, the pictures of innocent maidenhood, ready to be instructed.

Behind them, those who knew who they were began to laugh. Those who did not know who they were were soon informed. The Reverend Mr. Barclay felt the situation was getting away from him. He turned to the dignitaries behind him for support.

It came from General Booth. The famous revivalist had dealt with the likes of Mrs. Jeffries before. In a stentorian voice, he announced, “Let us pray, my friends!”

“Pray for yourself, you old fraud!” someone called out.

“We are here to denounce Sin!” the General thundered out.

“Speak for yourself!” From another section of the audience, catcalls and boos echoed the sentiment.

“I will speak for those who cannot speak for themselves! I speak for the homeless, the poor, the despairing, the men and women destroyed by the Demon of Drink.”

The constables standing behind the crowd moved forward, trying to pinpoint the direction of the roughnecks who were bent on disrupting the orderly procedure of the meeting. They inched through the throng, batons at the ready.

Inspector Wright stood next to the platform, trying to keep his eyes on the constables and their sergeants. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to disrupt this meeting, and Inspector Wright was not going to let that happen.

General Booth had permitted the Lord Mayor of Brighton to join him in controlling the crowd. The Mayor welcomed the crowd in appropriately rotund phrases, punctuated by more catcalls from the back of the crowd. Mrs. Jeffries smiled benignly through it all.

There was a spatter of applause as the Mayor sat down. Then, in the lull as the Reverend Mr. Barclay fumbled with his notes, a shrill voice rang out:

“That girl is wearing my dress!”

All eyes turned to the child who had stood up and was pointing directly at Mrs. Jeffries and her brood.

“Alicia!” Her mother pulled her down.

Alicia had other ideas. She jumped up again and shouted, “That girl is wearing my dress! They took it away from me, and they gave it to her! She is not to wear my dress!”

“What … who …” The dignitaries on the platform muttered and mumbled among themselves. The gentlemen of the Press pricked up their ears and began to scribble on their pads. Here was indeed a revelation, one that would make the
Pall Mall Gazette
look pallid by comparison.

Alicia advanced upon Mrs. Jeffries and pointed to Helen. “That girl is wearing my dress,” she repeated.

“That's a lie!” Helen spat out, before Mrs. Jeffries could stop her.

“You live in that house, where they do nasty things …”

By now the crowd was craning to see what was going on. Lord Richard Marbury took the podium. “Please, this is my daughter, Alicia. Alicia,” he called to her, “you must sit down now.”

“But that girl …” Alicia repeated stubbornly.

“Yes. She is wearing your dress.” Lord Richard glanced at his wife, who stared back blankly. “Because”—he took a deep breath—“Because, ladies and gentlemen, because my own child, my little Alicia, was abducted in this very place, and very nearly forced into unspeakable acts. Were it not for the vigilance of the Brighton Constabulary, and particularly Inspector Wright, who stands here with me, she might even now be taken abroad, to who knows what fate? My friends, good people, shall we permit this? If my own child is not safe, whose child is? I urge you, sign the petition! I shall accompany General Booth to Westminster tomorrow, and present the will of the people to Parliament!”

The catcallers were shouted down by the forces of moral rectitude. A queue began to form in front of General Booth's table.

From his place behind the Visitors' Section, Mr. Dodgson nodded to Bouncing Billy. “Now, young man,” he said. “Do you see anyone here like the gentleman who accosted Old Keeble on the pier?”

Billy looked at the crowd. “Hard to say,” he said, with a shrug and a glance at Inspector MacRae, who had moved to join Mr. Dodgson.

The Scotland Yard man glared at him through his spectacles. “You listen to me,” he said severely. “This man has caused the deaths of two people that we know of. One of 'em was a friend of yours. Now, look again!”

Billy eyed the crowd. The constables were still standing by, batons at the ready, but the noisy disruption had been stifled. Now the speeches were mere background as the queue formed in proper British fashion.

“Hello!” Billy moved forward, with Mr. Dodgson and Inspector MacRae behind him.

“Who is it?” MacRae urged him onward.

Billy moved ahead, to the Visitors' Section. Lord Richard had left the platform, to console his wife, who was in tears. Alicia had been swept away by Nanny Marsh, and was now at the edge of the crowd. Ned Kinsale had stepped out of the mob, to hand Alicia into the carriage that awaited her. Geoffrey Upshaw was hovering around the Marbury family, waiting to bring Lord Richard back to the public eye.

“That's him!” Billy pointed at the Marbury contingent.

Inspector MacRae strode ahead of Billy and Mr. Dodgson. Ned Kinsale stared at Mr. Dodgson, taking in the sight of the trio, frowning in puzzlement.

Geoffrey Upshaw looked wildly about him and bounded away, scattering ladies in bustles, gentlemen in frock coats, and children in smocks as he ran.

Constable Corrigan had been stationed behind the Visitors' Section. He took off after Upshaw, leaving Kinsale to the tender attentions of Inspector MacRae.

“I've got you now, me lad!” MacRae gloated. “Member of Parliament or no, you won't play your tricks again! You and your Fenian friends will think twice before you disrupt public meetings!”

While MacRae held on to Kinsale, Upshaw ran blindly through picnics and parties, leaving a chorus of outrage behind him, while Corrigan pounded along behind. Dr. Doyle wasted no time in running after Upshaw, but headed for the gate to the grounds, the nearest outlet to the street. If Upshaw got to it, he could vanish into the crowds on the Steine.

Upshaw loped around the park, to the gate. Dr. Doyle was already there, ready to stop him.