Gibbous House Read online

  Cheapside, like most of London, was overrun with Cheap Johns, watercress girls, flower girls and the like. Shouts of ‘Scissors sharp as like to cut themselves! Only a shillin’!’ melded with the plaintive cries of watercress girls of barely eight years old hawking ‘Creases, creases four bunches a penny’. I tossed a penny to a smut-faced girl in a yellow bonnet and turned away as she held out the wilting bunch of greenery. Arabella’s child would have been the same age, I supposed.

  The day being so fine, and cheered by this contrast with its earlier misery, I embarked upon a circumambulation of the cathedral, if only to distract myself from the thought of the two officers. Turning left from Cheapside into the Old Change, I turned right on Church Yard. At the foot of Ludgate Hill, a crowd had gathered. Moving closer, I perceived they were watching a performance.

  A stall like that of a Punch and Judy show, only far more capacious, was almost blocking the thoroughfare. It seemed too grand to be wheeled along by its proprietor, however strong he might be, and yet I saw no dray or mule in its vicinity. Drawing nearer still, I apprised myself of the nature of the show.

  Wooden figures japed around the stage, jerked by strings manipulated by an unseen hand. In no way were these movements natural; they were more like the jerkings of the palsied interspersed with episodes of St Vitus. I had seen such shows before – they were still known amongst their performers as ‘The Fantoccini’, though the fashionable preferred the term ‘Marionettes’, proud of having seen the Gribaldi Royal shows at the Adelaide Gallery on the Strand. Arriving in medias res detracted not a whit from the entertainment’s comprehensibility, the show being a hotchpotch of imitations of circus acts and lampoons of actors from the legitimate theatre. A hurdy-gurdy player provided an infinite variety of musical accompaniment to the clacking of the stringed dolls.

  As I watched, they began the final figure. It was introduced as ‘The Scotchman’ and a riot of plaid and whiskers appeared onstage, then capered energetically in a ‘Highland Fling’ not even a Scot would have recognised. I made to leave as the hunchbacked proprietor begged some indulgence of the audience, while his assistant played a magyar reel. A voice like a cracked bell assaulted my ears. ‘Wait, sir. Wait. Did you not enjoy the spectacle?’

  It was no London voice, but neither was it Italian as one might have expected. I felt the hunched figure must be German or Gypsy and his blunt looks did not gainsay me.

  ‘I liked it well enough, except for the last,’ I replied.

  ‘Then remove a sum from your payment accordingly, sir. That is fair, is it not?’ He tugged my sleeve for emphasis.

  ‘I am not bound to pay for street entertainment.’

  ‘Ah, a Scot yourself then.’ And he cackled, mouth wide open, showing an absence of any teeth and the presence of brimstone breath.

  I was shaken to the core, furious at my origins being divined, and I snatched my sleeve from his grasp. I stalked off to cries of ‘Keep your balsam for the catchpoles, you nimmer!,’ which showed that he was a Londoner now, whatever he had been before.

  The walk cleared my head, though I could not help but think again of the bailiffs. There was little for me to fear from them. Gibbous House should bring enough ‘balsam’ to satisfy the lowest of thieving nimmers. It was time to go north and play the hand out, no matter what other cards might fall.

  London’s capricious weather had again taken a turn for the worse, but I held to my resolve to quit The Chaste Maid that day, July thirteenth, 184_. Clouds had covered the setting sun and no amount of crepuscular carmine could mitigate the gathering gloom.

  I intended to inform Thackeray and depart forthwith, but on entering the inn I remarked on both the relative paucity of custom – given the hour – and the presence of Sergeant Purewipe and Constable Smackle. The landlord was busying himself cleaning some brass that had not felt the touch of cloth since the Regency.

  Purewipe fixed me with his hangman’s glare and enquired, ‘Mr Moffat, Mr Alasdair Moffat?’

  I allowed that I was, since plainly he knew already. He cleared his throat, as if uncertain how to begin.

  ‘Ah... it concerns a timepiece. We... have reason to believe it is yours, since your name is engraved upon it.’

  ‘Mine is not an uncommon name in some parts of the Commonwealth, Sergeant,’ I said, remaining cool and awaiting developments.

  ‘It’s not yours then?’ Smackle sneered.

  ‘I did not say that, Constable.’

  ‘Well, is it, Mr Moffat?’ Purewipe was clearly the more dangerous of the two.

  ‘It might be, Sergeant. I had the misfortune to be relieved of mine earlier today in Hawthorne Lane. Not the only crime of which I was the victim today, in truth.’ I smiled at the two brutes.

  Purewipe coloured. Perhaps his collar was a little tight.

  ‘Might you have a witness to the theft, sir?’ There was gravel in his voice and I felt uneasy.

  ‘My pocket was picked, Sergeant. No one sees a dip. Surely my word... ?’

  Smackle gave a snigger. Purewipe held up a hand.

  ‘Your watch, sir, was but recently found in the hand of a corpse.’ He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘By you, Sergeant?’

  ‘As it happens, sir.’

  ‘Did you find a coat nearby?’

  He had the good grace to blanch at this and I surmised that the Peelers had been indulging in a little private business to augment their admittedly pitiful income. He straightened his shoulders and leaned his glowering face into mine.

  ‘Mr Moffat, I have a message for you... ’ He looked over each shoulder, as if someone were likely to come down the stairs with a billy club. He went on, ‘Go north, Mr Moffat. Go north.’ He tipped me a salute.

  They were almost at the door when I asked, ‘Who was it, Sergeant? The unfortunate?’

  I was hardly surprised when he answered, ‘I believe he was known as Cartwright, sir.’

  Whether it was a matter of his belief – or certain knowledge – was moot. I suspected that he had learned some-thing of my business from the deceased legal minion, in any event. I would have supposed that they presumed that I had despatched Cartwright, had I not already assured myself that they themselves had done it. It would not have been the first time such fellows had removed an inconvenience on another’s behalf.

  Thackeray had a wary eye on me as I turned to face him. He remained quite expressionless as I bade him prepare my account for settlement, merely intimating that my debt to him was in the sum of three pounds. I presented him with my bill of exchange, adding, ‘In the sum of three guineas, in recognition of the pains taken for my comfort.’

  Answer gave he none. He merely tore my bill into tiny pieces and jerked his head toward the descending figure of his spouse, carrying my valise down the stairs.

  I would make for the coach north, but first I had need of more funds than I had and I made for a gentleman’s club I knew, where a man might make a little tin at cards. My baggage I left with a man known for his relative honesty in the environs of The Chaste Maid. I had frightened him more than once into being so in his dealings with me, at least. The sky once again looked as though it had a mind to rain. I turned up my collar and made my way to Cockchafer’s.

  I felt the rain on my face as an affront. Even in Whitechapel, the sun ought most surely to appear from time to time. The wheel of a dustman’s cart splashed my trousers and boots, which was less an inconvenience than the spores of dusty filth that a fine day might have engendered. In consequence, I was wet, cold and hungry. I had come directly from a game of Écarté at whose table there were gentlemen even less careful of the laws of honest gaming than I, otherwise I might have been less hungry and most certainly warmer.

  Dorset Street was my destination. As expected, it was narrow, dank and filthy. My mood would not improve if I did not encounter Tess Hamilton at the very end of the close. She had learned her business from Ikey Solomon, and, though I did not hold out much hope for the receipt of anything approaching the va
lue of my pilfered items, I did hope that she would recognise them as items of quality. In sundry pockets of my topcoat I had several gold fobs and chains, a silver calling-card holder in an exquisite design and, best of all, a miniature sapphire cylinder pocket watch made by Courvoisier and Comp. This last was a quite beautiful piece and had it not been for the fact that I was without any kind of address, fashionable or no, I should have kept it for myself. My removal of these items from my erstwhile partners at cards I justified by the certain knowledge that they had cheated from the instant the first hand had been dealt.

  I saw no symbol of the pawnbroker’s trade. It was a plain entrance with a solid door and few windows. My knock remained unanswered and I gave up after the third attempt for the sake of my knuckles. Moments later, I heard a shrill ‘Gardy Loo!’ and was thoroughly soaked by the contents of a particularly fetid chamber pot. The raucous laughter that ensued told me that Miss Hamilton was in residence.

  ‘I have pretties, Tess.’

  The face under the dirty and crumpled bonnet could be said to have resembled nothing other than a close-shaven Barbary ape. The voice was as high-pitched as a young boy’s and emerged from an all but toothless mouth. Furthermore, the filth that issued therefrom would have shamed a lighterman at the East India Docks. The woman screwed one eye as tight as one might without blocking the ingress of light completely.

  ‘’Tis you, Moffat? Truly?’

  ‘Of course it is, my lovely.’

  Miss Hamilton let out a cackle, which soon devolved into a catastrophic explosion of phlegm and spittle. Paroxysm coming to a close, she wheezed, ‘There is no doubt of it, Mr Moffat, ye’re a fair treat. I’ll be down momentarily.’

  The head disappeared from the upstairs window and I awaited the opening of the door.

  ‘Not seen you since Michaelmas last, Mr Moffat.’

  The woman stood on tiptoe and with her arm at full stretch pinched my cheek with a fearsome grip.

  ‘How Ikey would have loved you, Mr Moffat, were you here as a boy. You are the spit of Jack Dawkins himself.’

  Miss Tess Hamilton regaled me with the tales of Ikey’s favourites whenever I availed myself of her services. I could only conclude the man had been an insatiable old fence. I followed the diminutive figure into such filth and squalor as might suit a mudlark or a midden-fly. She bent to collect a tallow-fat candle from a tallboy that looked relatively new.

  ‘I have no time for furnishings and carpentry. The small pretties, they’re the things, Mr Moffat, eh?’

  We left the front parlour and entered the scullery. This same space hid behind the staircase, which arose in the middle of the muck and bric-a-brac that might have covered a sofa or a hibernating bear. There was no doubt that some food had been prepared at some time in the tiny space to which the woman had brought us. I could not in all conscience say that it had ever been eaten by man or woman. Which is to say that the smell was, indeed, fearsome.

  Miss Hamilton had the misfortune to be both short and rotund. Her bell-like shape gave forth no ringing tones however, her voice being as rough as a sailor’s stubble.

  ‘What have you brought me, Mr Moffat?’ The woman put her head to one side and fluttered her eyelashes. I was glad that I had not drunk too much while at cards.

  I took out what I had taken from the other players while I had been losing to them at Écarté.

  Despite the woman’s slitted eyes, she could not prevent the gleam from appearing the moment she saw the watch. She rubbed her hands and snatched the watch from my hands. On making a half-turn away from me, the better to use the thin light coming through the hole in the exterior wall, she let out the noise of a self-satisfied cat.

  ‘Purr-etty!’

  ‘How much, woman? I haven’t time to waste.’

  I was in receipt of a sly look and presumed her offer would not be to my liking. The watch had cost a guinea at the least when purchased, according to the fop who had lost it to my talents as a pickpurse.

  ‘I’ll give you two shiny pennies, my prince.’

  ‘You’ll give me a crown and like it.’ I stood over her but she merely looked up at me, back arched, as though about to hiss. Then she shrugged. ‘Sixpence, for your handsome face, then.’

  I would have turned her upside down and shaken all the money from her person, had I thought it would do a bit of good.

  ‘A half-crown, out of fairness and honour.’

  ‘But there is only one thief present.’ Her laugh was again phlegmy and somehow lascivious.

  It is shaming to say it, but I laid her low when I struck her with my fist. I searched her person and found precisely sixpence to add to my limited funds. I searched the scullery. The parlour was an impossibility. Mounting the staircase, I was astounded to come upon one beautifully appointed bedroom as would have befitted a fashionable house in Curzon Street, save for the sackcloth at the window. There was no strong box, no loose floorboard, no hidden compartment and no money. Tess Hamilton still lay where she had fallen. As I departed the hovel, her groaning convinced me that she was not bound for the inferno quite yet.

  Chapter Three

  It was late afternoon. Baggage in hand, I hailed a carriage and directed the driver to Smithfield in the hope of securing a coach north that very evening. With my inheritance in mind, I considered the prospect of one day having the wherewithal to make the journey north on a steam locomotive. For the moment my means remained such that I could afford only a seat on the coach out on the Great North Road, and that outside.

  It had begun to feel cold, and in the interest of expediency I decided to avail myself of the Fortune of War’s privy. I relieved a sleeping and somewhat portly gentleman of his topcoat. In times past, he might have lost more than his coat at the hands of the resurrectionists who frequented the inn some years ago. Since the man was safe from the anatomist’s slab, I left only a penny or two in recompense, for the coat was not in style and a d___ poor fit.

  At the hour of eight, the coach was all but ready for departure, save for the absence of an inside passenger. The coachman himself fussed with the traces, but showed less impatience than the clergyman whose red bulb of a nose emerged periodically into the cooling air to the accompaniment of much harrumphing and sighing. I was merely curious: what quality of passenger could hold the departure of the Newcastle coach? After a time, and only shortly before the reverend suffered an apoplexy, the tardy traveller arrived. It was a womanly figure, well wrapped against the elements, though despite the swaddling she was perceptibly young. She moved daintily but determinedly, deigning to nod at the coachman as she waited for him to assist her.

  I laughed as the churchman’s head attempted the window at the very moment the coachman opened the door. The woman looked up at me, and it is no self-deception to say that I discerned the lineaments of a smile before she averted her gaze. The memory of the journey, like that of so many others like it, sits deep in my marrow, so penetrating was the cold. Inside the carriage the jouncing and jostling from the ruts and potholes of the roads,– so poorly maintained by the Turnpike Trust,– were sufficient that ladies in a delicate condition were often advised against travel.

  Outside, where I in my Pantagruelian topcoat had taken post, it was a gargantuan struggle not to be thrown off at every corner. Attempting to grip fast to a moving carriage with hands numb with icy cold is no easy feat; it is a wonder there are not more unfortunate incidents. But I am no tyro in matters of the outside fare and held tight to my post for my life.

  By morning, and after a change of horses that could only have coincided with the pitifully short period of slumber allowed to me, we had reached Stevenage. My travelling companions evinced as little interest in me as I, in truth, could muster in them. However, I felt I could not forego the opportunity to ask of news from London. I doubted that the clergyman had read either the early or late editions, but I did have hopes of the merchantmen. Indeed, for all my confidence that Smackle and Purewipe had not been paid for their efforts from the publi
c purse, it was not sure that they had not later made some official report of Cartwright’s death. Or, worse still, fabricated a part for me in it.

  Addressing myself to either Castor or Pollux, I began, ‘Sir, I am but recently come from the colonies and would know something of London since I spent so little time there before our departure.’

  He eyed me as though I had passed him a clipped coin. Then he began to regale me with the most impenetrable arcana concerning the beneficial fluctuations in the price of American cotton and the prospect of the collapse of the Indian manufactories. Attempting to steer the conversation into waters of more interest to myself, I interrupted. ‘How very interesting. But changes go far beyond the commercial, do they not? I have heard that London has become uncommon dangerous of late, and this despite the esteemed efforts of the Metropolitan Service.’

  Once again I received a look of near contempt from whichever of the merchant twins I had engaged in conversation. It appeared scarcely credible to him that the safety of persons might be more important than the bale price of American cotton at auction. Rather boldly, it might be said, the clergyman’s travelling companion – a Miss Euphemia Lascelles – interposed:

  ‘Oh, indeed, sir, of late I seldom venture out without protection of the male persuasion.’

  I had little doubt of that.

  To my surprise, the reverend, one Nicodemus Parminter, nodded vigorously, the high colour of his cheeks and nose as expressive as those of a pantomime harlequin. ‘And neither should you. Why, even a gentleman risks much in parts of the capital! I would never venture into Cheapside but for my calling among the Magdalens.’

  I forebore to commend him on the obvious sincerity and depth of his vocation, asking, ‘Indeed? And what of other locales, surely the Haymarket or Temple Bar are safe enough?’ Parminter began to form his lips to the shape of undoubtable wisdom on the matter, but he was interrupted by the hitherto mute of the merchants. ‘Contrariwise, sir. They are not. I had occasion to witness the aftermath of a brutal murder at the Inns of Court today. Off Hawthorne Lane, in fact.’