Murder by Ghostlight, page 1
MURDER BY
GHOSTLIGHT
MURDER BY
GHOSTLIGHT
CHARLES DICKENS &
SUPERINTENDENT JONES INVESTIGATE
J.C. BRIGGS
PRAISE FOR
THE MURDER OF PATIENCE BROOKE:
CHARLES DICKENS & SUPERINTENDENT JONES INVESTIGATE
‘This is a well-written and engaging novel …The pages keep turning, and the evocation of foggy Victorian London is excellent’
The Historical Novel Society
‘[An] aspect of this novel that adds to its enjoyability is the fact that it feels very much like a traditional gaslight mystery, with footsteps in the fog, an unseen person with sinister voice singing a well-known tune … Put all these elements together and it creates just the right amount of suspense’
***** Crime Fiction Lover
‘From the first few pages you are captured by this fast paced, descriptively brilliant yarn, which sweeps its reader away into the tangible world of dark, damp, foul-smelling Victorian London’
***** Dickens the Sleuth, Amazon
PRAISE FOR
DEATH AT HUNGERFORD STAIRS: CHARLES DICKENS & SUPERINTENDENT JONES INVESTIGATE
‘The dark side of Victorian London is effectively portrayed in a chilling tale of child murder, deceit and madness. Grab a cup of coffee, put your feet up and enjoy’
The Historical Novel Society
‘Briggs’s real triumph is the creation of secondary characters who could have come straight out of Oliver Twist and whose fates will tug at readers’ heartstrings’
Publisher’s Weekly
‘This is a cleverly crafted story with magnificent period detail to flesh out the circumstances in large and small ways. All the characters whether major or minor ring true in this Dickens London’
Jennifer Palmer, promoting Crime Fiction
For Tom
First published in 2016
The Mystery Press is an imprint of The History Press
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This ebook edition first published in 2016
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© J.C. Briggs, 2016
The right of J.C. Briggs to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 6987 1
Original typesetting by The History Press
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CONTENTS
PART I: MANCHESTER
Prologue
1 Accused
2 Deliverance
3 Confession
4 There was a Boy
5 Mrs Ginger
6 Hedley’s Court
7 Salford
8 The Ivy Green
9 Manchester Ladies
10 Amazed and Confounded
11 Angel Meadow
12 Lying Awake
13 Mrs Gaskell
PART II: LONDON
14 An Interlude
15 A Door Closes
16 Sweet Sally Dibbs
17 The Crypt
18 Staple Inn
19 Names on a Grave
20 Mr Dickens Tells a Story
21 Inspector Hardacre
22 A Death
23 A Narrow Escape
24 Eyes on Him
25 Loss
26 A Night at the Circus
27 A Footfall on the Stairs
28 Highgate Cemetery
29 Scrap
30 Grave Peril
31 Strange Meeting
32 Skylight
33 Weighed in the Balance
34 Afterwards
Historical Note
About the Author
PART I
MANCHESTER
‘It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves forever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long …’
Charles Dickens, Hard Times
PROLOGUE
1850
The actor on stage seemed to be asleep, one long white hand hanging from the arm of the velvet chair, and the white of his shirt showing momentarily in the flickering lamplight. His head was on his chest and he was quite still.
The theatre was quiet now, the stage illuminated only weakly by the ghostlight left on for safety, and by the oil lamp burning down. Someone had carelessly left it on one of the side tables on the set. There were only shadows in the wings, and silence.
The man making his way up the centre aisle was surprised to see someone on stage; he had thought they were all gone. He had only come back to check that all was in place for tomorrow night’s performance. Why was there someone on stage? He went closer. Surely it was Bell – he seemed to be asleep in the chair in which he usually sat when the play was in progress, and he was dressed as Bell would be. But Bell had left the stage after the curtain call, and anyway, why was the curtain raised? It looked as though the play were about to begin, as if the actor would wake and speak his lines when the footlights came on. But it would not be a comedy, thought the man. Somehow, the sleeping figure suggested that a tragedy would unfold. This lonely man would speak of some terrible sorrow or grief. The play he had been in that night was not the play in which he was the central character now.
The man stared. Should he shout out? Or would that startle Bell from his deep sleep so that he would be afraid, embarrassed, confused? No, he would climb on to the stage and wake him. He did so and went over to pick up the oil lamp which he shone on to the recumbent figure. Then he saw the blood on the white shirt. He looked at the dark, curling hair and the long, corpse-white hand. He shuddered at the sight of it. Bell was dead. He had been shot and the man saw now the black pistol lying on the stage as if that long, white hand had dropped it there. Suicide? Or —
A noise. Someone was in the auditorium. The man picked up the gun and raised the lamp so that whoever was out there should see that he was armed. He looked out into the darkened space beyond. He stood still, his eyes straining into the darkness. Someone was there. He could sense him. Somewhere at the back, out of sight, someone was watching the scene on stage, the scene that he had written and directed, watching the actors whom he had cast in their terrible roles – murderer and victim.
Then came the sound of someone clapping in the auditorium, the sound of mocking applause from someone who jeered at the actors. The living man on the stage pulled the trigger. A shot rang out. He had an impression of movement. Then he knew that the other was gone.
1
ACCUSED
Inspector Zaccheus Hardacre of the Manchester Police Force was not what might be called a humorous man. He had, however, a grim sense of irony forged in his youth by the spectacle of his father in the pulpit delivering the homily which enjoined his congregation to suffer the little children to come unto me, and then delivering a blow or two to his wife and any child who happened to be in his way on the Sunday afternoon in the chilly, damp parlour of the vicarage Inspector Hardacre had once called home. So, it was irony rather than amusement which brought a faint smile to his lips as he contemplated the man sitting opposite him in the police office in the Town Hall in King Street, Manchester.
A famous man, true, but famous men were composed of passions just as ordinary men – they knew jealousy, desired revenge, relished power, loved and hated, could drop poison in the glass, place their hands round the slender neck and squeeze. Could point the gun. And the suspect had been found with the murder weapon in his hand. A shot had been heard a short time before the police constable had entered the crime scene and the constable had smelt the sulphurous odour of a gun recently fired. The suspect had protested his innocence, but then suspects usually did. It was not often that a suspect immediately admitted his guilt – or hers, thought Hardacre, thinking of Betty Eccles, hanged for the murder of five of her children, protesting her innocence all the way to the gallows outside Kirkdale – nasty business that – five kiddies poisoned. Two years ago, William Adams had admitted his guilt after he had murdered Diana Thomas – but then he had shot her in front of a policeman. Handy that. The witness in this present case had called up a beat constable who had verified the fact that the accused was holding the gun in his hand. Well, he thought, let’s hear the story. Facts were what he wanted, hard facts. And he said so to the suspect who remembered his words later; as a matter of fact in 1854, the year in which Hard Times was published.
‘Now, what I want is facts,’ the Inspector said. ‘You’d best tell me how you came to be holding that gun over a corpse.’ His voice was not unpleasant, soft with a northern accent.
‘Stick to the facts, sir, and my constable here will take it all down, and then we’ll see, shall we?’
We shall, thought the other man, though I doubt whether we shall agree. What a fool he had been to fire that gun. But it had been frightening – that sense of someone watching, and that applause. Someone out there enjoying that little drama on the stage. But who? And Bell dead. How came he dead? Not by my hand, but it looks bad. And he had not liked him. That will come out. And the rest. And the play cancelled because one of the actors was dead and another in custody, accused of murder. Thank God he had had the opportunity to send a message to Sam. Sam would not believe it – surely he would not.
The young constable, who had been staring at the accused with open-mouthed fascination, heard the Inspector’s words and came forward with his notebook in which he would take down in shorthand the prisoner’s statement – not that his skills were as fluent as those of the man in the velvet coat who had learned shorthand in about three months – but then he was an extraordinary man.
‘Well,’ said the Inspector. ‘Let’s get on with it. Tell us what happened.’
And Charles Dickens told him.
The evening’s performance was over. It had been a good house – plenty of laughter and applause. Mrs Gaskell had been there and Harrison Ainsworth, and Superintendent Sam Jones and his wife, Elizabeth, on a visit to cousins in Manchester. The Superintendent was an officer from Bow Street Station in London. Thank the Lord for that mercy, thought Dickens. He and the Superintendent were old friends, and Dickens had been of assistance to him in two previous murder cases. Now a third – the difference being that Dickens was chief suspect. Not a comfortable sensation.
The play was Money by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. They were to play for three nights at Manchester’s Queen’s Theatre in Spring Gardens to raise funds for Dickens’s project, a scheme for a mutual insurance fund for writers and artists. Dickens had played Sir John Vesey, and the dead man, Clement Bell, had played Alfred Evelyn, the romantic lead.
After the performance Dickens had gone with the other members of the cast to dine at the Concert Tavern, but had then gone back to the theatre – something had bothered him. He was a perfectionist. Everything must be in its right place – when he travelled, he always rearranged the furniture to suit his habit, and that night on stage he had been sure that something was out of place on the set so he could not relax until he had satisfied himself that the stage was as he had directed. He had gone round to the front of the theatre, intending to view the stage from the auditorium. He had stood on the steps for a few moments thinking about the play and the cast. It had gone well, but there was a tension he could not quite fathom. It was something to do with Clement Bell.
Clement Bell had replaced Dudley Costello, a journalist who had acted with Dickens’s amateur players when they had come to Manchester in 1847. Dickens had asked him again, but Costello had written to Dickens apologising for his inability to take part, and recommending a young journalist he knew who would be happy to take the role of Alfred Evelyn. Costello had written that Clement Bell was an accomplished actor, a gentleman, and a man for whose easy good temper he could vouch. Dickens had accepted the substitute. Clement Bell had the dark good looks that would make him just right for the melancholy, serious Alfred Evelyn; he was tall with brown eyes and curling hair. Yet Dickens had not really liked him – Bell was not ill-tempered, but there was an arrogance about him, and a carelessness about the feelings of others which repelled the other members of the cast who were all well known to each other and friends. Bell was essentially a loner, a man who kept his distance and, moreover, he had taken private lodgings in Manchester rather than with the cast. It was odd, Dickens had thought, given that Costello had recommended his easy manner and affability. Still, there had been no choice if the play was to go on. Dickens hated to give up on a project, especially one which would bring benefit to other writers and artists. He would be glad, he had thought, when it was all over and he would not need to see Clement Bell again.
Dickens told the Inspector how he had gone into the auditorium so that he could see the stage from the audience. The stage was lit by the ghost lamp, a light left burning for safety so that there was a kind of flickering darkness which lent something eerie to the scene. He had noted that there was an oil lamp, too, though why it was there he did not know. He told him how he had realised that Bell was dead, and how he had heard someone in the auditorium. He related how he had heard the mocking clapping and had fired. And then nothing – until the watchman had come with the police constable, and they had found him with the murder weapon in his hand. The watchman, Tom, he was called, had tried to say something, but the constable was only interested in arresting the man who held the gun.
‘And this person you – sensed? You didn’t actually see anyone.’ The Inspector stressed the word ‘sensed’ and in his tone Dickens heard the scepticism.
‘No, I did not, but I heard a noise and I could feel him there watching. It was as if he were watching a play – then he applauded. It must have been the murderer for I swear to you, Inspector, I did not kill him.’
‘You didn’t hear the first shot when you went into the theatre?’
‘No, Inspector, it must have happened while I was in the Concert Tavern.’
‘How long were you at the Tavern?’
‘I don’t know – a few minutes.’
‘Did anyone see you leave?’
‘Again, I do not know. Someone might have noticed, but the rest were going into the dining room.’
‘You didn’t go back to the theatre to see Mr Bell for some reason?’
‘No, Inspector, as I told you, something wasn’t in quite the right place on stage – a piece of furniture. It made the moves awkward. I just wanted to check.’
‘Mmm.’ It was hard to tell what the Inspector was thinking. His face gave nothing away – neither belief nor disbelief. Inscrutable, thought Dickens, determined to hold that level blue gaze.
The Inspector went on, ‘And why did you fire the gun? A foolish thing to do – if there had been someone there then it’s not much help, is it? That shot sent him scarpering.’
‘I don’t know why I fired it – I suppose to warn him not to come near me. My God, Inspector, I was frightened – Bell dead and someone skulking in the shadows and then that clapping. I suppose I thought he might come for me.’
‘Hmm. But, you must admit, Mr Dickens, that until I’ve some evidence that there was another person there, and until I find the bullet you shot into the auditorium, your story is a bit, shall we say, thin?’
‘But why should I kill Bell? I hardly knew him. Why would I put the play in jeopardy? I’ve lost one of my main characters, and I will have to cancel the last night’s performance.’
‘Did you like him?’ A sudden and penetrating question. The intense blue eyes stared.
Dickens paused before answering. He would have to admit that he did not. No one did, and when the Inspector asked the rest of the cast they would tell him. But no one in the cast would have murdered him simply because he was arrogant and rather cold. And I would not have killed him because I … no, don’t think of her. She could not have. Just answer the question. He was aware of something in the Inspector’s penetrating gaze, something icy. He was taking too long to answer a simple question.
‘I did not – he was rather a good actor, I thought, but none of us warmed to him – a cold man, arrogant we thought, too sure of himself. Odd, really.’
‘Why?’
‘Bell had been recommended by my friend Dudley Costello who assured me of his affable temperament – he was sure I would like him. Strange that Costello liked him so much.’
