Children of the Tide Read online

  The two stood for a moment in the gloom of the flickering candle before walking back upstairs.

  “Have we finished, Inspector?”

  “One last request, Matron. I would like to see Miss Matty’s room.”

  As he stepped quickly down the stairs into the vast cellar of the workhouse, Sergeant Caldwell winced from his tooth pain. He popped two cloves into his mouth and settled them on his throbbing molar. He couldn’t help wondering about all the poor thin girls he’d seen huddling in the wards. What a horror to think a parent could abandon a child.

  “Good morning, sir,” he said to the scrub boy.

  The boy nodded his head.

  “Take me around, boy, to all the doors in the cellar and then on the upper floor.”

  “To check locks, sir?” the boy asked.

  “Yes, lad, to see if and where the killer broke in.”

  “You won’t find any, sir,” the boy said leading Sergeant Caldwell up a back staircase.

  “Won’t find what?”

  “No signs, sir. First thing I did before I scrubbed the hearth was to check doors. The intruder never come in here by them.” The boy pointed to a door leading to an upper room. The lock was still on and there was no sign of any forced entry. Throughout the walk the same situation occurred. The workhouse had been sealed tight. Sergeant Caldwell wondered if the boy had performed some mischief, but as he watched him he saw he was clever, quick, and obedient.

  “You were born in here, lad?”

  “In’ere? Two floors up in the women’s ward. Never set eyes on me mammy.”

  The boy’s bright voice cut into Caldwell’s heart. He did not think of himself as sentimental. How had this lad become so strong? So used to a lonely life? After inspecting all the doors and entrances, Sergeant Caldwell made a few notes in his notebook.

  “Now, lad,” Caldwell said, his voice more cheerful, “gather all the workers here. Lead them to the hearth room. Fast as you can, young boy. I have questions to ask!”

  Chapter Two

  Tales of Woe

  Matron Agnes led Endersby into Miss Matty’s small room, its only furniture a simple bed and a cupboard with two drawers. The cupboard contained a cloak, a pair of shoes, and an outdoor bonnet. A meagre life, the inspector thought.

  “Can you recall if any other woman or man complained against her?”

  “The scullery maids liked to tease her a little. Such was their way. Matty never complained, nor did they. Perhaps they saw in each other a similar misery.”

  “Or loneliness?” the inspector added.

  “We are a place full of much loneliness, sir,” Matron Agnes replied, a melancholy in her words.

  “Did Miss Matty have any friends or acquaintances outside of the workhouse? People she met or spoke about?”

  “She rarely talked to me. Her acquaintances were few — if any — that I could perceive.”

  Endersby thanked the matron. On his way down to the entrance of the workhouse he peeked into a ward full of destitute women with small babies. What sorrow pervades the morning light, he thought. What thin hands and thin bodies are arrayed on the rows of beds. Why does our time treat women so cruelly? Why was Miss Matty murdered? What kind of person would wish her dead? Endersby knew how fear and hatred in some people’s minds took time to grow. Like seeds, they lay dormant until a gesture, a cruel word, made them burst out of the heart and force the hand to take a life. But who had Miss Matty wronged?

  On reaching the entrance hall, Endersby felt relieved to see Sergeant Caldwell standing by the hearth where the body had been found. Endersby hoped his sergeant had found a clue. A cook in a white apron, the sour haughty master, a tall, pinched-looking younger gentleman, and two other stern women were arranged in a wide circle about the sergeant. Closer to Caldwell stood two very haggard women.

  “These are the scullery maids, sir,” Caldwell explained. The two reminded Inspector Endersby of the oyster-sellers he frequently visited in the dock streets near Limehouse: shabby in dress, smelling of dirty bare feet. “I tried to scream, I did,” said the first of the two. Endersby listened as the two interrupted each other with their tale of finding the body on the floor. “Did you notice anything in Miss Matty’s mouth when you found her?” Endersby asked. The two quickly glanced at each other: “Naught, sir, but her cheeks were fat out, like she had taken too much porridge from her bowl.”

  “Was there anything lying on the floor? Other than the tipped chair?”

  The two scullery maids shook their heads. Endersby thanked them and stepped aside to think for a moment. His gouty left foot started to pang. A bad omen, he thought, for he relied on his left foot to alert him to the swell of obscurity which often dogged an investigation. This morning he suffered a peculiar confusion from what seemed to be, so far, a murder with scant clues: the lace, the coal dust, the bruise and the bits of rusted metal. He looked at Sergeant Caldwell, who was finishing up the testimonies of the other workers. After they were dismissed, Caldwell gave a summary of his findings: the cook arrived at a later hour and was unaware of the killing; the masters had all been in bed, as had the two other matrons. None except the two scullery maids had acquaintance with Miss Matty. The two masters knew her by sight only. No sign of the coal carrier.

  “No adult witnesses it seems, so far. And the doors and entrances, Sergeant?”

  Mr. Caldwell grinned and spoke with clove on his breath. “Sir, the scrub boy took me around to the back and front entrances. Both showed no signs of forced entry from the outside. The locks were large and opened by a number of key turns. A villain, sir, would have needed a strong arm and a metal jack-bar to open either one of them. Both were locked all night. The windows here, as we have observed, are barred and high up. However, sir, there is a wooden side door. Near the stairs leading up from the laundry rooms. It has a latch, but only on the inside. On the outside, it is without hardware.”

  “I wonder why?” queried Endersby. “Certainly to keep outsiders from entering via the yard. Dare we assume, Sergeant, that this door was the exit afforded to the culprit?”

  “Possibly, sir, since the young child was found close to it by the workhouse gate.”

  “Ah, indeed. The waif named Catherine. Do we know anything about her?”

  “Not as yet, sir.”

  “But, Caldwell, why was this particular child out in the cold? I wonder if there are many who try to escape from this dreadful place?”

  “If I may suggest, sir, a child wishing to escape would surely have run far away from the workhouse gate.”

  “Most surely, Sergeant.”

  Endersby blinked his eyes; on raising his head only a fraction, he dispelled a number of swirling questions and returned his attention to the present situation.

  “And the scrub boy, Sergeant?”

  “Sir?”

  “Did you question him at all?”

  “Most efficiently, sir. He said he was asleep upstairs with the other boys. Seems the male wards and the family wing are all locked at night, so no passage between them and this female ward is possible until the morning when the masters unlock the doors and herd the inmates to their breakfasts.”

  “Curious,” replied Endersby. “But with all these locked doors, how did the culprit move so freely? It would depend on where he entered, surely. Caldwell, I have a sense that this person knows well the layout of a workhouse. Knows of locked passages and open ones. How else could such a brutal act be committed if the man were stumbling about getting lost or at worst, being caught by a master and thrashed?”

  “I shall keep this in mind, sir. The scrub lad also told me how difficult it was to mop up the coal dust.”

  “Coal dust! Do we know where the coal chute is for the kitchen?”

  “In the cellar, sir.”

  “Kindly investigate it. See if there are signs of a forced entry, if the chute itself looks brushed or mussed in any way.”

  “Mussed, sir?”

  “The victim was heavily smudged with coal
dust. We could presume it was a coal carrier who decided to end Miss Matty’s life. Or, in fact, we might discover that the culprit, whose profession remains, as yet, unknown to us, entered the building via the chute.”

  “Indeed, sir.”

  “By the by, find out the name of the coal carrier. Where is the chap? In the meantime, I will go to the young girls before me in the ward. Perhaps one of them can enlighten me. If we have some luck, perhaps one can remember witnessing the villain — although fear of the dark can create monsters.”

  Endersby stood alone for a moment, his ears alert to the murmuring of the young girls in the ward. What human flotsam stood before him. The ever-present spectre of young Robert Endersby, his only child, now dead these twelve years, drifted into his conscious mind. Not unlike one or two of the children in this ward, his son Robert had been a weak three-year-old, eventually felled by a lung infection. Seeing so many young girls before him, Endersby felt pity, as each of them might be dead within a week or a month. “For their own safety,” Endersby grumbled, thinking back to a statement once made by a politician who supported workhouses for the poor as a way of teaching them to become “self-sufficient.”

  Honing his mind as best he could, Inspector Endersby now looked with clear eyes. By each bed stood a young girl dressed in blue muslin. Heads lowered in obedience, bare feet, and a smell of sickly skin engulfed the space. When he approached one girl, she raised her face to him and showed a set of drawn features, the eyes ringed with mauve circles.

  “Good morning, girls. My name is Endersby. I am a policeman.”

  A muted round of “g’morning” greeted the inspector’s introduction. He asked the children to approach him and stand in a circle. The girls moved quickly, some stumbling. “Have you had your porridge, yet?” he asked. A cry of “No, sir,” flew up to the high ceiling. “Then I shall be quick,” Endersby said, looking into the homely faces of the unfortunate of his own society. Could any one of these young females tell a story recounting the events of last night? Would they be reliable as witnesses? Given the hardship in their young lives, how well could these storm-tossed children reveal the differences between phantom and flesh? With a gracious severity, he asked the oldest girl to step forward.

  “Now, why don’t you tell me a story? You tell stories to each other, don’t you?”

  A few of the girls blushed and responded in the affirmative.

  “Blest, sir,” the girl said excitedly. Endersby saw spirit in her; he looked at the other girls who held their eyes on her as if they were her acolytes. All stories have a beginning so the inspector asked her to begin. The girl swept her eyes around the circle of her ward sisters. She began with ghosts and goblins. “Ah, wondrous,” Endersby said. Then he prompted her to tell a true story. “Go back in time,” he suggested. “Imagine yourself in the dark last night, in this very room.” The others began to shuffle. One child coughed. The girl began. “Last night, oh, last night.” Endersby sat forward. The girl told of a dark figure moving down the beds holding a candle and whispering.

  “Indeed,” replied the inspector. “Why do you think he went about so?”

  “Nothin’, sir … only wos ’ere to look … passed close by me, he did.”

  “Did you see his face, by chance?”

  “I dustn’t ’cause he was stinking so.” The others giggled. The girl blushed and pulled nervously at her sleeve. Endersby gave her a nod as if to say, “good work,” and the child came close again, cupping her chilly hand around Endersby’s ear.

  “Ah,” replied Endersby, exaggerating his astonishment at her whispered words. “Are you certain?” The girl pressed closer.

  “A broken limb, you say. A limp,” said Endersby.

  The girl stepped back, proudly smiling. “Well done,” Endersby said.

  Endersby waited a little longer, gazing in the faces of those around him. No other child stepped forward. Catching a nod from Matron Agnes at the door, he told the girls their porridge was waiting, to which announcement they shouted like a horde of fun-seekers at a seaside fair and dashed off to the eating hall. Pushing through the rush came Sergeant Caldwell, his notebook held in his right hand. Endersby stood up from the bed where he had relaxed his painful foot. Yet another gouty pang made him consider the details he had just heard.

  “Sir,” said the sergeant next, “best, I reckon, if you walk around with me to see what I have seen.”

  “…More things in heaven and earth?” quipped Endersby.

  “Sir?”

  “Mr. Hamlet, Sergeant. He has been stuck in my mind these last few days. At Covent Garden Theatre this past Friday I had the delight to see Mr. Macready play the lead role. Walk on. Let us see together. A few details were gained from talking to the little girls. One said she saw a limping man looking at the faces of the children.”

  “And yet, sir, the child was left behind.”

  “The wrong child, may we surmise?”

  Chapter Three

  Clues in the Coal

  Caldwell led his superior down two staircases, through a kitchen, and into a cramped room containing the blackened coal chute. Thomas knew the case was already causing the inspector doubts. He knew Endersby’s gout would soon slow him down as much as his own toothache was draining his energy.

  Standing in the doorway of the coal room, Endersby gazed first at the space, his way of pondering and examining a room before drawing a conclusion.

  “Enter carefully, sir,” Caldwell cautioned, holding up a lit candle. “Stay to the right, sir. I shall explain.”

  “I see it has been left open. This bottom flap,” Endersby said at the coal chute. He poked his head up the chute, which came down from the yard at a steep slant. The chute was mussed. Caldwell imagined a body had slid down it, kicked open the bottom flap and landed on the floor. The usual coal pile from a delivery had already been cleared into bins and into smaller buckets for haulage up to various hearths. Endersby noted immediately even a light brush of an elbow procured a sooty, oily stain. “Notice, sir,” said Caldwell, “a faint boot mark on the inside of the chute’s flap.”

  “May we assume, Caldwell, the intruder pressed his boot to open the flap as well as to break the velocity of his slide?”

  “Likely, sir. And see, we can make out even in this light at least six pairs of distinct boot marks leading from the chute toward the door over there.”

  Endersby turned up one of his own boots; there was black dust on the sole and a shadowy print left behind on the floor. Caldwell did the same and when the two made their way to the door, they were careful to walk beside the other foot prints, comparing their own boot marks to them. “A telltale sign of some import,” Endersby said. “Note, the left boot has a worn heel — see the shape. And look at the right. The print is smudged and indistinct.” Caldwell bent down and slipped on his wire-rimmed spectacles.

  “Most certain, Inspector, the left heel is not truly rounded on the outside. It seems as if the right boot were dragged on the floor as the culprit walked.” Endersby examined the boot mark from another angle. “The young girl I spoke to in the ward told me she saw a figure late in the night and he walked about as if he had a broken limb.” The two men closely examined the other prints. Outside the door to the coal room, the floor had already been washed, the footprints mopped away. “I question, Sergeant, the manner in which the culprit left the building. He did not return here and climb back out; the chute slant is too steep.”

  “It is, sir.”

  “And when did all of this skulking about take place? Shall we retrace the route the culprit may have taken from this coal chute to the upper ward?”

  Endersby fell in behind his sergeant, who carried the candle aloft. “Sergeant. A partial sooty handprint,” said the inspector, joining him on a step. “A narrow palm, sir,” Caldwell replied. The inspector looked hard and said: “This little blotch of dried blood is, in fact, a scab left stuck to the brick.” Sergeant Caldwell slipped on his eyeglasses again.

  A sudden sla
pping sound made the two men turn. Before them stood a round-faced man in a leather apron, his face and hands blackened by coal dust. He scowled and beat a thick leather strap against his apron.

  “Who’s the cove that thinks I am a murderer?”

  “Who are you, sir?” Caldwell said in a loud voice.

  “Andrew Potter, sir. Coal carrier and devout Christian. I do not like my character slandered, sir, by the likes of you.”

  Endersby stepped from behind Caldwell and introduced himself and his sergeant-at-hand. “Mr. Potter, there has been a mistake. We do not think nor do we accuse you of murder. We are in St. Giles to investigate…. You speak with a good tongue, sir.”

  “For a coal carrier, sir? Yes. I take no offence at your observation. Mam was a teacher. Gave me a good tongue, a head for reading. Fell ill to the pox. Left me in this place, this St. Giles. Sent out to work at fourteen in the coal works, sir.”

  “A body of one of the matrons has been found in the front foyer, near the hearth. I assume, Mr. Potter, you have been informed of this terrible discovery.”

  Potter nodded. “Some here thinks I am the culprit, that I killed poor Miss Matty. Me, who works seven days hard labour a week — all night, rain or snow.”

  “Are you innocent, sir?” Endersby asked outright.

  The coal carrier drew back. “Never hurt a soul. Usual for me to come here Tuesdays and Fridays, to St. Giles,” he said, “just before dawn, load four sacks in the chute out yonder. Matron Agnes pays with ready money.”

  “Do the children recognize you, Mr. Potter?” Endersby asked.

  “I imagine so, sir,” the coal carrier answered. “I hail them in the mornings, the young ones outside at least.”

  “Given the days you deliver here — it being Wednesday today — were you by chance delivering coal anywhere near St. Giles Workhouse early this morning? Let us say close to three or even half past three o’clock?”