Marley Was Dead: A Christmas Carol Mystery

  Chapter 2: December 20

  The next morning was sunny and somewhat warmer, and he found himself at the office of Scrooge and Marley early. When he knocked at the door, Bob Cratchit let him in, and led him to Scrooge’s desk, before returning to his own desk by the window. McFergus suspected the window light was just Scrooge’s way of saving money on candles.

  “Good day,” McFergus said to the sour-faced old man who eventually looked up.

  “A fine wish, I suppose, but little good it’ll do me to hear it,” Scrooge said in a grating voice. “Corn’s down, the city wants to buy my biggest warehouse for a pittance, and half the people who owe me money are going to ask for an extension on their loans by week’s end. Do you suppose your wish is likely to help any of those issues?” Scrooge looked up briefly, then returned to his ledger, his pointed nose following the lines like a pen.

  There was something cold, McFergus decided, about Mr. Scrooge. Something that chilled even the air around him, although that could hardly have been more than a degree above the outside air. Maybe, McFergus thought, it’s that he looks half dead already, with his blue lips and hollow cheeks. Only his red eyes reminded one that Scrooge wasn’t a walking corpse. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt. Can I ask you a couple of questions?”

  “Is there any profit in it for me?” Scrooge squinted in the dim light. “Ah, I can see by your expression that there isn’t. Well;” he shuffled a few papers and dipped his pen into the inkpot. “Well, you know where the door is.”

  “This is about an investigation into the death of Mr. Marley.” McFergus had faced worse, but then he’d had his badge to rely on.

  “You’re police? Badge. Let’s see your badge.” Scrooge’s stare was something in itself.

  McFergus wasn’t going to bluff a man with this many connections and this much money. “Former inspector. Retired six months now.” It wasn’t likely Scrooge was going to offer him a chair, he decided.

  Scrooge tilted his head down and looked up through his eyebrows at McFergus. “Former inspector; former right to ask questions.”

  “It’s about Marley, your former partner.”

  “It appears your job and your subject are both done, gone, suitably decaying. Can you suggest any reason I should go digging in the graveyards of ghosts such as yourself.” Scrooge waved generally at his papers. “When I have living work to do?”

  “Curiosity about Marley, perhaps?”

  “My only curiosity is about the market. That, and just how long it will take my clerk to show you the door. Cratchit!” Scrooge stood up, and looked at McFergus. “I am not without influence with this city, and I can talk to Superintendent Bannim, should you persist in interrupting a working man.” Scrooge sat down as Cratchit arrived. “You have my permission to spend as much of your time as you want asking questions about Jacob Marley. Just,” he tapped his desk with the a finger, “don’t use up my time or my clerk’s in doing so. Good day Mr. former policeman.” Scrooge dipped his pen into the ink again, and began writing.

  “Can I talk to your clerk?” Cratchit was beside McFergus, nervous.

  “On his own time, you can do whatever you want. Good day, sir.”

  Cratchit and McFergus walked to the door. As McFergus exited, Cratchit whispered, “He’s away at the market first half of the afternoon.” And the ex-policeman found himself on the street, almost knocked over by a man pushing a barrow of books and newspapers for sale. The man was obviously on his in a hurry, away from someplace to someplace. McFergus took a quick cop’s-eye view, then moved on. A person usually didn’t get run down by bookmongers; they were among the noisiest people in the street, constantly trying to impress people with their use of big words, even if most of their income came from selling old newspaper clippings for a farthing or two, rather than from political tracts, stationery, or books.

  McFergus took his watch out of his pocket to check the time. It was a miracle, the thought, that he had one; in his childhood a person had had to be quite wealthy to have a watch. McFergus’ kept his on a strong chain – watches were still an important part of the pickpocket’s living.

  Almost ten in the morning, and he was a bit depressed by the interview, or lack of it, with Scrooge. His badge had been a shield against people for years, and relying on people to talk to him out of the goodness of their souls wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d hoped. He ignored the people who tried to sell him apples and fried foods, and stepped into a tea shop inside a departmental store. A tea room, or a departmental store, for that matter, was another item he’d never dreamed of as a child, but he was learning that public houses were filled with people who didn’t want him there because he’d been a copper. There were of course, the old police hangouts, but the last time he’d gone to one of those it was clear that he was no longer part of the conversation about daily life, and he’d felt rather excluded. Perhaps, he thought, it is time to get out of London.

  He looked around at the other people in the room. They looked contented, or as much as they could with British reserve, but a bit restless. Many interrupted conversations with polite coughing. The air, McFergus thought. Humans aren’t meant to breath soot all day. Not that there was much anyone could do about it; coal fuelled the city. When the coal-soot fog settled into the streets, few people ventured outside unless they had to.

  After tea a baked sweet dusted with sugar, he used the toilets out behind the establishment, then tried to decide what to do.

  He had a meeting with the Hill kid in the afternoon, and a try at an interview with Bob Cratchit if he was lucky. Other than that, his only direction at the moment was to try to find someone called Desmond, selling something in the Great Blackfriars market.

  Since it was Saturday the streets were busier than usual, and the sunshine and warmth, unusual for London in December, had brought more costermongers out to sell their wares. McFergus paused to buy a used small brass-and-elm-wood-scraping tool from a street ironmonger, then wandered down to the docks. At King James Steps he could see that the tide was out, with many ships and boats canted over on the mud and many more well out in the deeper water, waiting for high tide and an available berth to come in. Work crews on some of the ships were repairing rigging or scraping barnacles off the sides. On a good day in summer as many as six hundred sailing ships might be docked along the Thames, but on this cold December day there were far fewer.

  He sat on the steps for a while, watching the mud larks wading through the cold water. Every now and then one of them would feel something to investigate with his or her toes, bring it up, and if it had any value whatever, put the object into a basket or kettle. He saw one of the smaller children slip, and come up wet. At this time of the year there were only a few out in the water, hoping for copper nails or pieces of iron, but most often finding only bits of bone or rope. Even that was saved; enough could be sold for a penny or two, and that would mean food for another day.

  Cold work, he thought, watching one of the old women with a metal pot; children and old women made up most of the mudlark group. The ragged clothes they wore didn’t cut the breeze much. He wondered if they were better off than those who searched the sewer drains for objects. Probably not, he decided; it was the mudlarks who sometimes committed nuisance crimes just for a few days in a warm jail in the winter.

  He watched as a woman waded out of the water, came through the mud flats and slowly climbed the stairs, then he moved over to meet her as she got to street level. She was, he could see, getting too old for the mudlark trade, and was limping. He held out one hand to help her on a step. “Did you cut yourself,?” McFergus asked, pointing to her foot. A small pool of blood was forming under one toe.

  She looked at him suspiciously. “What’s it to you?”

  McFergus dug a handkerchief from a pocket, and handed it to her. “Broken glass,” he noted. “Always a danger underwater.”

  “You’re a copper, aren’t you.” She wrapped the cloth around her foot.

  “Not any more. Ret
ired.”

  “Must be nice.” She looked around in case anybody was watching, but no one seemed to be paying any special attention to them. “Thanks.”

  He took the tool he’d purchased from his pocket and passed it to her keeping the transaction out of the sight of people passing by.

  “What do you want?” She looked hostile, but desperate, which, McFergus thought, was probably an apt description of everyone out on the mud.

  “Your name?”

  “Betty.”

  “I’m Ian. You were with the costermongers, weren’t you?” He thought he remembered her among the street sellers, but wasn’t sure.

  “Might have been.”

  He sighed. “I want you to find out something for me.”

  “What kind of thing?”

  “Will you do it, Betty?”

  “Might.”

  “I want you to find out anything you can about Jacob Marley. He was a businessman who died seven years ago. I want to know if there’s anybody who’s heard stories about his death.”

  “And?” She was starting to shiver, but she kept looking at the tool, now in the bowl she carried.

  “Just tell me. I’ll get you something else, if you can.” The tool, worn as it was, was worth enough to keep her in basic food for most of a week, if she were careful.

  “When?”

  “I’ll be back here in three or four days.” He straightened up and walked away, not looking back.

  It was getting close to noon, so McFergus took a bus to the market. It was one of the newer buses with an upper, uncovered level, but he paid the extra couple of pence to sit on a wooden bench inside. He was glad he did, since a passing cloud dropped a scattering of rain halfway there.

  It was a slow journey, and he wondered if the first subway, still under construction, would make any difference. The big question, he thought, is whether people will trust a steam-powered engine to take them underground. While it was underground, the soot from the engine should be even worse than the usual London smog, if the soot-storage plan didn’t work. And if the engine stopped while underground…. Well, he could only imagine the consequences. Trains had got stopped once or twice on rising lines in tunnels across the countryside, and the results had been most unfortunate for the passengers.

  But the subways weren’t far underground; the engineers just dug a big ditch down a street, put in rails, then bricked the top over. They’ll probably provide escape ladders, he decided. Besides, sometimes when the subway line had a long way to go, the city of London expropriated a building above the tracks. Then they’d leave the walls, and remove the interior. That way, the train could come into open air briefly, inside the walls of the building, before going back underground.

  Might work, he thought. It’s bound to be faster than this. The slow passage of the bus left him lots of time to look out the window. When he got off near the market, he paused to pat one of the horses. Horses pulling buses didn’t last more than a couple of years. It was best not to ask where they went after that, but the rumours always mentioned the meat pies sold by the street vendors. The street vendors’ donkeys were usually loved – McFergus had been to a funeral for a donkey, once – but the horses used for transportation seldom got the protection they deserved.

  The market was doing just fine on a Saturday morning in December. It was down a bit from summer, but, McFergus knew the costermongers, whatever they sold, still needed the income when it was cold, if not more so. Trade would pick up as the day went on. On a Saturday evening, the workers of the factories and shops in town would get their weekly pay, often in a public house, and the shopping would be at its best of what was left when the worker got of those pubs.

  There were sellers of raw fish and shellfish, of game, and of poultry. There were people selling vegetables, and people selling flowers. And, should someone be hungry, cooked food included fried fish, hot eels, pickled whelks, sheep’s trotters, ham sandwiches, peas’ soup, hot peas, penny pies, meat puddings, and baked potatoes. There were vendors of baked goods like spice cakes, muffins and crumpets, Chelsea buns, sweetmeats, brandy balls. Some sold coffee and tea, hot wine, asses’ milk and milk fresh from a cow, and even water.

  And that was just the food. Other vendors sold new or second-hand articles, live animals, printed material, or curiosities.

  Among the crowd were the buyers, looking to find someone to sell them old clothes or tools, hare skins or rags, broken glass, waste paper, or drippings.

  At the bottom of the scale were those who picked up what others dropped, from dog’s dung to cigar ends.

  It was, McFergus, mostly a seller’s market. And why not? A growing city like London absorbed prodigious quantities of goods every day, coming in by ship, by railway, and by cart. Servants of rich households could shop at the big markets for their masters or order goods to be delivered to houses. Vendors might make their way to some of the other houses by cart. And a million cattle a year were driven into London through the narrow streets, to be butchered as necessary.

  But throngs of poor people bought at the street markets. They bought food, but they also bought their soaps and cosmetics, their rat poison and matches, their jewellery, boots, and pet squirrels. They bought new items if they could afford them and second-hand items if they couldn’t.

  And if you needed something repaired, there were always people who would repair a clock or kettle, remove grease from a coat, or sharpen your knives.

  McFergus stepped aside as a band of “Scotch girls” pushed by, almost tripping over a small girl selling a few old pans. The street was always noisy with performers and the sound of the vendors hawking their wares. You could tell the true costermongers: they wore long sandy-coloured corduroy waistcoats with brass and mother-of-pearl buttons with a picture of a stags head on them and green, red, or blue neckerchiefs with yellow flowers. The neckerchief was most critical to a costermonger, and none would be seen without one. For pants they wore corduroy bell-bottomed trousers. Boots often had motifs of roses, hearts and thistles.

  You wouldn’t think, he knew, that it could get busier. But it did, in warmer weather, although every year the markets got smaller. At the urging of shop owners, the city had passed laws ordering vendors to keep moving, so buyers could get through to the shop doors. That law, among other things, had put the street people into conflict with the constabulary. McFergus was glad he’d gotten promoted to inspector before that had happened. There were enough people contemplating “accidentally” elbowing him just for once being in the force as it was.

  It was natural, McFergus thought, that the costers and the coppers should come into conflict. Perhaps the costers knew that, as London became more crowded and more wealthy, their carts would more and more stand in the way of both traffic and a store-based commerce. The stores paid taxes and taxes paid for policemen. Owners of the large new buildings, known as “departmental stores” had no love for the donkey carts that slowed traffic and sold items on the streets outside their doors.

  At one point he saw the famous Henry Mayhew interviewing a seller of flowers for another article in the Morning Chronicle.

  McFergus bought a piece of smoked eel, still sizzling from a Dutchman’s cart, hoping he wouldn’t get indigestion. Amy refused to have the greasy fish in the house, but he’d picked up a taste for it in his youth. “Have you seen Desmond today?” he asked the Dutchman, but the man just gave him a blank look.

  A boy standing nearby, however, overheard him. McFergus figured the lad for a pickpocket, given his swagger. “Desmond. Tuppence and I’ll take you to Desmond.”

  “Seems a bit high,” McFergus said. “A couple of farthings, maybe.”

  “Then you’ll have to find him on your own, I guess.” He paused. “A penny.”

  “Done, but payment after you get me there.”

  “Fine.” The lad was off, and McFergus had a hard time following him among the crowd, given his larger size and limp.

  It was less than a minute before the boy
stopped. “You can hear him from here. Pay me.”

  “I hear a lot of things.”

  “The bookmonger.” The boy looked up, suspiciously. “Didn’t you know he was a bookmonger? Are you police?”

  “Just wanted to buy a book. The penny’s in my outside pocket.”

  The boy brushed by and was gone, but when McFergus checked his pocket, the penny was also gone. He shook his head; they were getting faster all the time. He moved slowly along, pretending no special interest in the bookseller’s patter. A crowd was listening, carefully, to Desmond reading from a small book of horrors.

  “How can I describe the strange and horrible sensation which oppressed me as I woke from my first slumber? I had been sleeping soundly, and before I quite recovered consciousness I had instinctively risen from my pillow, and was crouching forward, my knees drawn up, my hands clasped before my face, and my whole frame quivering with horror. I saw nothing, felt nothing; but a sound was ringing in my ears which seemed to make my blood run cold. It was the sound of water running along the halls and seeping through the spaces under the doors.

  I could not have supposed it possible that any mere sound, whatever might be its nature, could have produced such a revulsion of feeling or inspired such intense horror as I then experienced knowing that there was no escape for myself nor those other unfortunate beings chained in these basement rooms. It was a cry of terror that I heard that had roused me to action and the moaning of those in anguish and despair at their fate.”

  He had a good voice; McFergus had to grant him that. But then, that was the point of being a bookmonger. Famous for their patter, a bookmonger would get a crowd of people, fascinate them with readings from horror stories, scandal sheets, or daily news, then sell as much as he could. In an area of people who couldn’t read, this was one form of education and entertainment. Some would buy, if only a page of an old newspaper, or a picture from one of the “special” books. Bookmongers looked down on the costermongers around them. “Haristocrats of the market,” they called themselves.

  When those who were willing to purchase, or only curious, had mostly left, McFergus edged in. “What can I do for you today? the vendor said.”

  “You must be Desmond! I’ve heard of you.” McFergus recognized the man who’d pushed by him at Scrooge and Marley’s earlier.

  “I am. I have things you’d like to buy,” Desmond said, reaching for a worn book.”

  “Actually,” McFergus said, “I’d like to buy a Communist pamphlet, if you have one. Or something about Jacob Marley.”

  Desmond didn’t blink an eye. “Communist goods. Well, I’ll have to see if I can get some of those. Come back in a few minutes or so. Now, would your missus like a picture of the queen and a story about the latest goings on at the palace? Only a couple of farthings.”

  McFergus paid or the slightly tattered newspaper clippings without looking at them: he knew Molly would read them in detail.

  “Merry Christmas, Desmond said.

  “It’s not Christmas yet,” McFergus said.

  McFergus moved away, looking at other wares, until a red-faced sailor stepped in front of him. The man was obviously drunk and a bit unsteady, or perhaps just off the boat and not yet used to standing on something that didn’t move all the time. McFergus was about to move aside, but the sailor had his eyes fixed on the cop. “You’re the man wots been going with my Hester,” the man said, quietly, with a smell of rum on his breath. McFergus would have been more comfortable if the man had shouted; a quiet voice implied purpose and direction.

  “You have the wrong man.” McFergus wished he could look around for an avenue of escape, but starting straight at the sailor seemed a better option.

  “McFergus. Used to be a copper. That’s wot I been told.”

  This was getting dangerous. “I haven’t been with any woman but my wife. Never.”

  “Hester. Hester Gouldrick.” The sailor paused, seeing the confusion on McFergus’s eyes. Then the sailor turned redder, rolled up his sleeves, stepped forward, and put one hand around McFergus’s neck.

  “I have never heard of this Hester,” McFergus said, just getting the words out. It was true, but someone it seemed was deliberately trying to put him out of the way. He was just about to try twisting loose and making a dash under an ironmonger’s cart when a police baton came down on the back of the sailor’s neck. It was a good hit; the sailor sank to his knees and put both hands onto his injured neck. Then he threw up, barely missing McFergus, and went on to his hands and knees, panting.

  A large constable leaned over the sailor and said, “Time to go home, sailor boy.” They watched as the sailor got up and staggered into the watching crowd.

  “A long way from home, aren’t you, Ian?”

  “Just thought I’d check out the market… Gus,” McFergus said. Seven months ago, they’d have addressed each other as “Inspector” and “Constable.” It rather surprised McFergus to be called ‘Ian,’ but he didn’t let it show. Augustus Corbally Oftan was bigger than most of the policemen on the beat, which was a help dealing with the sailors and most of the vendors in a street market. But he was too rigid on minor infractions for the liking of most street sellers or, for that matter, for McFergus himself, who rated the constable as a bit of a bully when not being watched. “Thanks for your help.”

  “Always glad to help a fellow officer,” Oftan said. “Can I help you find anything?” He stood, legs apart, in the stream of people moving through the market, and let them flow around him like a river.

  “Oh, I have nothing in mind. Just thought I’d see if anything caught my eye, and get out for a bit of exercise.”

  Oftan smiled a broad smile, and replied in his East Anglian accent, “Well, if you run into any more sailors, you might want to limp away as fast as you can. I’ll try to keep an eye on you, but…” he indicated the market bustle around him.

  McFergus knew that there wasn’t much that could be seen at more than a few feet away nor anything heard above the cries of the vendors hawking their products, so he just shrugged. He watched as the constable elbowed his way through a street band of Irish tin-flute players. Ten minutes later, he was back at the bookseller’s cart. He looked over the contents of the barrow until Desmond’s latest reading – from an illustrated story about maidens being captured by Scandinavian trolls – had come to an end.

  “Back again,” the bookseller noted.

  “That I am.”

  Desmond reached under an old bible and withdrew a pamphlet identical to the one McFergus had got the previous evening. “Ah, that’s fine,” McFergus said. “How much is it?”

  “It’s worth more than you can afford,” Desmond said. He winked. “Just don’t come back here,” he added in a low voice. “Give me tuppence.”

  With the exchange made, McFergus made his way to the edge of the market, and caught a bus away from the place, sitting again on the lower section. It wasn’t much after noon when he arrived at the Empress tea shop.

  He sat at a table at the far end of the shop, then ordered a cup of tea and a scone. The room was small, but mostly full, as he might expect on a Saturday afternoon. Almost a third of the customers were women, dressed for the day, and watching each other and the street. Half the street people of London were women and girls, of course; they lived near the markets. Upper-class women had servants to do the shopping for them. McFergus saw only a couple of these; a servant woman’s time was usually too closely regulated to allow any of them to meet with each other, except when actually waiting in the shops for service. These two young women were happily chatting to each other, having acquired enough time and a few pence for a sugary treat and a cup of tea that wasn’t made from the house mistress’s leftover leaves.

  Most of the women were obviously housewives, probably having taken a cab or bus “downtown.” Each would have several servants at home working, of course. (Amy had refused a servant several times, but now that she had that filing job, they might be able to afford one,
McFergus decided.) The chief constraint on women venturing outdoors wasn’t safety – not during the day, at least – but convenience; there were few places a woman would consider using for a toilet in central London, and most men used an alley for urination, rather than face the facilities behind a public house. He was, therefore, startled to see a woman come out of a small room at the back of the shop. As the door opened, he could see a wooden bench with a chamber pot under it. Obviously, the shop could afford to have one of the staff take the chamber pot out back to empty it every now and then. There was a sign on the door that said, “For Women Only.”

  Smart idea, he decided. Perhaps they should bring flowers into the shop to encourage more women. Even then, he decided, that might not work. Women’s dresses were ground length, and cleaning the dress after even a small sojourn into public spaces took most of an hour, removing the rough strip along the bottom, heating water for a laundry, washing the strip, then sewing it back onto the dress. Until that problem was solved, women would be reluctant to go any distance.

  He looked around, to see “Sampson” standing by the table.

  McFergus reached over and pulled out a chair. Sampson sat in it about the time a waiter arrived. The waiter took McFergus’s order for a cup of tea and a hot cross bun, although the bun was pretty cool by the time it arrived. Until then, nothing was said. After the youth had sipped tea and tasted the bun, McFergus looked at him.

  “You should move,” Sampson said. “You and your wife will be happier out in a smaller village, and your inspector’s pension will go further.”

  The policeman’s look of surprise must have shown. “Oh?”

  “You’re still wearing the pants and shoes of an inspector. But you’re not hanging around one of those public houses that policemen frequent. And yesterday, you saw a policeman on duty, but turned away. That implies a personality conflict with someone in the department. If it was with another officer, you’d still have friends. Since the other policemen seem to be avoiding you, you must have had problems with the superintendent.”

  McFergus nodded.

  “A retired policeman, all alone among the people he used to watch, means there’s a sense of boredom. You’re probably dredging up an old case that you were never satisfied with, but aren’t sure you’ll get anywhere, which is why you’re desperate enough to talk to someone young enough to be your grandson.” Sampson sipped his tea. “The stain on your sleeve tells me you had a piece of eel; they’re a greasy fish. You’ve traveled some distance, but you went by omnibus. You rode inside, with your back to the vendors, since there’s more soot on your back than on your hat. That tells me you didn’t want people to recognize you. The view from the top of the bus is better and the ride is cheaper.

  “I’d say you went to the market, and bought a pamphlet from a bookseller. A Communist pamphlet, by the corner sticking out of your pocket.” He smiled. “Shall I ask about the docks? Or who attacked you?”

  McFergus was starting to look uncomfortable.

  Sampson continued. “Your wife must be lonesome from missing the social contact she used to have with other policemen’s wives. I know the department actively promotes after-hour events in the force; obviously members of the force don’t want to associate with you or you’d be talking to one of them now. But you must have some friends or you wouldn’t have lasted so long.” He paused. “You might want to try Oxford or Chatham. I can assume,” Sampson said, “that the donkey hair on your pant cuff indicates you’ve been around a costermonger other than the bookseller, and you must have gone to the river, probably near the St. James Steps for some reason. It would make sense that you’ve visited Marley’s old house and office, of course….”

  McFergus stopped him. “Perhaps I can just tell you what I’ve done.” He smiled. “I might even tell you why, if you’ll listen.”

  Sampson merely nodded.

  “Scrooge and Marley is still operated under that name, although Marley’s been dead almost seven years….”

  Sampson raised a finger. “Exactly when did he die, and of what cause?”

  “I might have been getting to that, you know.” McFergus waved for another round of tea and cake for both of them.

  Sampson said, “I’ve found that minor brains blather on too much, with irrelevancies, while many intelligent persons make too many assumptions about what the other person can know. Or deduce.”

  “A compliment?”

  “The truth. I seldom do compliments, and then, not well. Let’s go over the facts about Mr. Marley again.”

  “Good enough.” McFergus did another scan of the room, as was his habit. “Marley died seven years ago as of this Christmas. Or, at least he was found Christmas day at the bottom of his steps. Inside the building.”

  “Not inside his house?”

  “Sort of a house. Marley lived in a building with several business offices. His apartment was in the same building, on the second floor. Scrooge, Ebenezer Scrooge, lives in Marley’s apartment now.”

  “You have been in there?”

  “Not yet.”

  “And the coroner ruled it accidental, but you haven’t been satisfied.”

  McFergus nodded. “I have my reasons, but it always bothered me.”

  Sampson nodded. “Then you’re probably right. But I think there was probably more to it than that.”

  “You do?”

  “It’s logical. You must have had a lot cases not to your satisfaction, but you chose this one.”

  “Okay then….” McFergus sighed. “A fellow I arrested, then let go. He told me someone was going to ‘do something to Jacob Marley’ at Christmas. And, of course Mr. Marley died Christmas eve.”

  “Ah.” Sampson actually smiled. “Guilt at having let the fellow go.”

  “Then, on my way home last night, a costermonger with a donkey said, ‘Talk to Desmond at the Great Blackfriars market about the Marley murder.’”

  Sampson sat up, and said, “The game is afoot.”

  “I know the phrase from my days as a gamekeeper. It meant that whatever creature you’ve been hunting has left its hiding place and is now leaving tracks.”

  “It’s from Shakespeare. Henry the Fifth. The meaning may be more general, and we can take it that things are happening after seven years of slumber. What else are you willing to tell me? What did you see at Scrooge’s house?”

  “I saw nothing. Talked to a street conjurer.”

  “Why?”

  “He came by. I knew him. He started a conversation.” He thought. “Desmond, the bookseller, went by.”

  “Was there any reason for the conjurer to stop? Was there any reason for him to be talking to a copper?”

  McFergus thought about it. “No, there wasn’t. Yet he seemed in no hurry.”

  “Could he have been checking you out for somebody?”

  “It’s possible.” McFergus thought over his tea. “I talked to the cleaners, but they weren’t there when Marley was killed. They gave me the name of Virginia Boyle, who was there when Marley died. They told me she was now working at Millbridge Abbey.”

  “Tomorrow is Sunday,”

  McFergus nodded.

  “Servants,” Sampson said, “get very little time away from their work. But on a Sunday, many are allowed to go to church in the nearest village.”

  “I thought of that, too. I could go to the manse and ask for permission to talk to Miss Boyle.”

  Sampson shook his head. “You’d have associated a policeman with the poor servant. She might well be sent away on suspicion alone.”

  McFergus nodded. “You’re right. I’ll think of something, though.”

  “Now tell me about the market and the docks.” When McFergus raised his eyebrows, Sampson added, “I can smell tar on you, you know.”

  Sampson had nothing to say about McFergus’s episode with the mud larks, but at the end of the description of the communist party meeting that night, he commented, “communism threatens the existing order and challenges the very
capitalist system that has made Britain the leader of the world.”

  McFergus nodded.

  “Attending the meeting, or even picking up that pamphlet isn’t going to endear you to the administration of the police force.”

  “You think so?”

  “The police force has a mandate to uphold the existing order,” the youth said, drily. “Have you to talked to Mr. Scrooge himself? He has, after all, motives. He did seem to inherit all of the Marley estate. And, for some reason, he took up residence in Marley’s apartment .”

  “You are suspicious?” McFergus looked up from sipping his tea.

  “There is no need to be suspicious at this point. We merely accumulate facts until facts lead us to the logical conclusion. If and when that happens,” Sampson added. “Tell me about your visit to Scrooge and Marley, Incorporated.”

  McFergus decided to forgive the young man his bossiness, for a while longer, at least. He described the visit in as much detail as he could.

  Sampson did not comment on Scrooge’s incivility. “You’ll be going to talk to the clerk, of course.”

  “I can assume Mr. Scrooge is at the exchange in the afternoon, so I’ll wander by in an hour or so.”

  The youth nodded. “I can assume you went to the King James Steps to hire a spy.” Before McFergus could confirm this, Sampson went on, “Tell me who tried to strangle you at the market. Yes, I can see the marks on your neck.”

  McFergus described his encounter with the bookseller, Desmond, and the attack by a drunken sailor.

  “You didn’t know the sailor?”

  “No. Never seen him before.”

  “An unprovoked attack on you. Was the constable a friend?”

  “Not before today. I always thought him a bully who resented my lenience with the costermongers.”

  “Perhaps we’ve entered the realm of theatre.” To the copper’s inquiring raise of eyebrows, Sampson went on. “We must consider the possibility that the whole thing was staged.”

  “For what purpose?” McFergus smiled.

  “Either to frighten you away, or to give you the belief that Constable Oftan is a friend.”

  McFergus thought about it. “You could be right.”

  “Did you know the bookseller? Had you seen him before?”

  “I didn’t know him, but I saw him briefly as I left the Scrooge and Marley building.”

  “You have a good eye for detail. That will serve us well.” Sampson pointed to the pamphlet. “Shall we open it”

  “I haven’t looked at it,” McFergus admitted. He unfolded it. Across the top, in the only blank space, were written the words, “Scrooge is next: Christmas eve.” He handed it to the young deductioneer. “Things are looking up, I guess.”

  “The game is indeed afoot.” Sampson smiled. “Although, to be honest, you yourself may be he game.” He clarified a bit. “It does look as though someone’s watching you.” He pointed at the pamphlet. “I understand one good way to catch a predator is to toss out some bait. You might have to be very careful.”

  “Point taken,” McFergus said. “I plan to talk to Mr. Cratchit, as I said, and maybe tomorrow I’ll scout out Millbridge Abbey.”

  “When shall we meet?”

  “Well,” McFergus said, “I’ll be gone all day tomorrow, so maybe Monday?”

  “That would be fine,” Sampson said. He paused. “If that note is accurate, we have four days left.”

  McFergus shook hands with the young man, and they left the tea room. Four days.

  McFergus took his time. If he and Amy actually left London, there was a lot they would be missing, and who knew if they’d ever get back to the city. He shook his head; he was thinking like the provincial kid he used to be. There were railways now. He made a mental note; make sure to settle in a town that has a railway link to London. That, of course, probably meant higher prices for housing. He wondered if Amy could get employment in a town outside London; there was a lot of prejudice against working women, other than the vast amount that were servants. But, he argued, with himself, Amy had some skills that would be hard to duplicate in a small town, and even if she were paid considerably less than a man, she might get some shift work.

  He considered the chance that he’d get work on the local police force. On the one hand, locals in towns and villages were often suspicious of “outsiders”. On the other hand, a modern police force often considered outsiders an asset; outsiders were less likely to let off people they were related to, and less likely to take payoffs from cousins in trouble.

  But, of course, he could end up supporting the rich against the needy. Abruptly, dodging a coster with a cart of hot tea and coffee, he snorted; not much chance of getting worthwhile work, anyway. He looked up; he was most of the way to Scrooge and Marley, Incorporated, for a chance to talk with Bob Cratchit.