Michael Gallagher's Blog - Posts Tagged "serialization"

London. Monday, January 19th, 1852

George and George, the other two office boys at Mr. Bruff’s law firm, sat snoring beside me on the bench, the victims of over-indulging on a plate of chops for their lunch. I gave the closer George a hefty nudge with my hip to try to claim back my fair share of the space. He came to for just a moment, blinked his eyes wearily, and then adjusted his hulking frame so that I had even less room than before.
Mr. Bruff’s office door swung open. Mr. Bruff came out and stood there contemplating the three of us. The look on his face suggested that he didn’t much care for what he saw.

“Gooseberry, with me,” he said, and, closing the door behind him, made directly for the stairs. I leaped up and padded along after him.

“The local chophouse again?” he inquired, as we exited the building together into a cold and foggy Gray’s Inn Square.

I nodded.

“Gooseberry, kindly inform George and George that from now on their favorite chophouse is officially off-limits.”

I don’t object to Mr. Bruff calling me Gooseberry, though I would have you know that it is not my real name. It’s a name that’s been given to me by one of Mr. Bruff’s clerks on account of my eyes. They bulge. At least, that’s what this clerk delights in telling me almost every single day. Naturally I can’t help them bulging any more than I can help being blessed with brains, and blessed with brains I am—to a far greater degree than either of the Georges, or that fool of a clerk, come to that.

I hasten to add, lest I later appear anything but entirely truthful on the subject, that having brains is not the only talent of which I am possessed, nor is Gooseberry my only nickname, which I’m sure will become clear in good time.

Mr. Bruff spotted a passing cab and put his hand out to hail it. As it pulled to a halt beside us, he directed the driver to an address in Montagu Square. I recognized the address as that of his close friend and client, Mr. Franklin Blake—Member of Parliament—a man to whom I have had the privilege of being useful in the past. I gripped the handrail to haul myself up to my usual seat beside the driver, but Mr. Bruff clasped me by the wrist and informed me that today he required my presence in the carriage. “There is a matter,” he said, “that I wish to discuss.”

Despite the ominous words, Mr. Bruff remained silent as the cab pulled away from the curb. It wasn’t until after we’d traded High Holborn for that long stretch of road that is Oxford Street that he finally opened his mouth to speak.

“Octavius,” he said, using my proper name for a change—a name which translates from Latin as ‘the eighth child’; not that I am the eighth, you understand, I’m actually the first—“do you recall how we met?”

“I do, sir, I do,” I replied, “although it’s a good six years ago now.”

“It was a day not unlike today,” he reminisced, “thoroughly miserable and wet. I was in Regent Street attending to a small matter of business when I observed a young lad loitering on a corner—a barefoot urchin trembling in the rain, his toes turning blue from the cold.”

Mr. Bruff does like to over-sentimentalize our meeting. I imagine it helps him justify the choice he made that day. But don’t be fooled by his sweeping sentimentality. This image he was painting hadn’t prevented him from grabbing me by the scruff of the neck, just as I was about to remove my hand from a gentleman’s pocket—with the gentleman’s wallet attached. When I tactfully pointed this out to him in the cab, he immediately began to bluster:

“I had every right to march you straight in front of a magistrate, Gooseberry! Instead I chose to take pity on a young, shivering ragamuffin and offer him a position as my office boy! Can’t you be grateful for that?”

I was grateful to him for getting me out of the Life, and I told him so—before he decided to clip me round the ear. But there was more to this story than he was aware, for I’d never got around to sharing it with him. He had always assumed I was barefoot because I was poor, but that just wasn’t so. I was barefoot because one of my trusty colleagues had stolen the boots off my feet while I slept. They say there’s no honor amongst thieves, and they’re right. It was only because of this temporary state of bootlessness that the old man had been able to nab me that day, for I guarantee you, at the age of eight—with my boots on—there was no swifter, slipperier pickpocket in all of London than yours truly, Octavius Guy.

It’s what Mr. Bruff might term ‘an irony’ (a word which he assures me has everything to do with the jesting of Fate and nothing to do with scrap metal), for my lack of boots was not just my downfall. When the lawyer took pity on my poor freezing feet, it also became my salvation.

“Gooseberry, over the years you have proved yourself trustworthy, resourceful and loyal,” Mr. Bruff went on, his wistful smile returning, “and in return I have kept your former profession a secret from employees and clients alike. But today, Octavius, for the greater good, it may become necessary to divulge its nature.”

“To Mr. Blake?”

Mr. Bruff grunted.

“Sir, have I done something wrong?”

“No, not at all. It’s quite the opposite, in fact. Mr. Blake’s summons was uncharacteristically vague, but the few details it gave made me think that your specialist knowledge might come in handy.”

“How so?” I asked, but Mr. Bruff would say no more, preferring not to speculate until he had all the facts at his disposal. I gazed out the window. We were passing by Hyde Park and the rain was billowing about us in sheets. I tried peering into the distance to see if anything remained of the Crystal Palace, where the Great Exhibition had been held the previous year. I couldn’t make out so much as a dickey-bird. Perhaps they’d already dismantled it. It set me thinking: what had they done with all those millions of panes of glass?

It was Samuel, the footman, who answered the door to us at Montagu Square. I’d met Samuel before on several occasions, just as I’d met most of Mr. Blake’s household. He took charge of Mr. Bruff’s cane and hat (though he pointedly ignored mine, obliging me to keep hold of it myself), and ushered us into the library where the family had gathered.

What a mournful sight! In the middle of the room sat a small, elderly lady, unknown to me, who was working on a piece of embroidery—or rather not working on it, for each time she inserted the needle, her fingers would shake and she’d burst into tears. Young Mrs. Blake was on her knees at her side, her arms around her, trying in vain to comfort her as best she could.

Mrs. Blake’s maid, Miss Penelope, stood in the background, miserably wringing her hands in distress. It shocked me to see the complete disarray that both her locks and her clothing were in, for she was a young woman who normally took such pride in her appearance. Wisps of red hair hung loose about her face, as if she’d just been in a cat fight, and her blouse, which had been wrenched loose from her skirts, was ripped in at least three separate places.

Miss Penelope’s father, the ancient Mr. Betteredge—the family’s faithful steward—lay slumped in a chair by the flickering fire with a tattered old book clutched to his chest. I couldn’t be certain whether he was awake or asleep, for, ranked as I was as being little better than a tradesman, I was obliged to keep my distance when Mr. Bruff stepped forward to greet the family.

Mr. Blake, who’d been pacing listlessly about the room, grasped my employer’s hand and shook it. But it was his wife—and not he—who quickly took charge of the interview.

“Mr. Bruff, thank you for coming on such short notice,” she said, as she rose to her feet. “You will remember my aunt, Mrs. Merridew?”

“A pleasure as always, madam.” My employer smiled and gave a stately little bow.

The woman acknowledged it with a nod of her head. “I had hoped to quieten my mind by occupying myself with something trivial and mundane,” she said, staring down at the embroidery in her hand, “but it doesn’t seem to be working.”

With this she broke into a fit of sobs.

“My aunt has had a rather nasty shock,” Mrs. Blake explained. “Actually, apart from my husband—who did not accompany us this morning—we all have.” She glanced meaningfully over her shoulder at Miss Penelope, who blinked, bit her lip, and wrung her hands again.

“My dear, as your trusted friend and your lawyer, I suggest that you start at the beginning and tell me everything that’s happened.”

“Then perhaps we should sit down.”

Mr. Blake drew up chairs for them both and then resumed his pacing.

“Mr. Bruff, do you consider me an imaginative woman?”

My employer gave the question some careful thought before he hazarded a reply. “Miss Rachel, I have known you your entire life. If you ask whether I believe you possess an active imagination, then I would say, yes, you display a healthy and inquisitive one; a match for any man’s. But if you ask whether I think you imagine things, then, no. Lawyer that I am, I would still take your word over others, were all the evidence on God’s good earth to speak against you.”

Mrs. Blake seemed pleased with this answer and rewarded him with a faint smile.

“Then I shall begin where I believe this mystery begins,” she said, “even though I have no proof that it does. Last week we happened to receive an unusual number of nuisance callers. When Samuel, our footman, answered the door he would find an old beggar woman on the doorstep, with sprigs of winter heather for sale—or one of those preposterous suppliers of religious tracts—or a man who grinds knives for a living. It became ridiculous, quite ridiculous, and really rather tiresome. Occasionally he would even respond to the bell to find nobody there at all!”

“Oh, my!” exclaimed Mrs. Merridew. “How very odd! We had the same trouble at Portland Place…just before my footman gave his notice. I wondered if the bothersome callers had anything to do with his leaving, for I have no doubt they played havoc as much on his nerves as they did mine, so I asked him straight out, but he said not; rather that he was obliged to attend to his sick brother.”

“You had nuisance callers too? But, Aunt Merridew, why didn’t you mention this earlier?”

“I didn’t think it important, dear.”

“Surely it cannot be a coincidence! Aunt, has anything else out of the ordinary happened to you recently? For instance, have any of your windows been broken?”

“Oh, my…not that I can think of. Why do you ask?”

“Because last Friday morning Penelope discovered a broken pane of glass in the servants’ quarters.”

Mr. Bruff sat forward with a look of concern. “You experienced a burglary?”

Mrs. Blake shook her head. “Apparently not, Mr. Bruff, for when I had Betteredge check the inventory nothing appeared to be missing.”

“An accident, then?”

“Perhaps.” She sounded doubtful. “Though if so, I’m surprised that no one has come forward to own up to it. It was never in my mother’s nature to dock the servants’ wages for breakages, nor is it in mine.”
“How very curious.”

“Curious indeed. Which brings us to the events of today. I had plans to attend an early luncheon with my aunt at her house in Portland Place, and I decided to take Julia, my baby daughter, along with me. I asked Penelope to accompany us, to look after her on the way there. Then Betteredge insisted on coming, with umbrellas for us all in case it rained.”

On hearing his name, the old servant sat bolt upright in his chair.

“And rain it might have, Miss Rachel,” he spluttered, “and rain it finally did. But, in truth, that is not the reason I requested to come.”

“No?”

“No!” With trembling hands he held out the book he’d been clutching. His forehead was fevered with sweat. “Just this morning I opened my copy of Robinson Crusoe—the one your dear late mother presented me with on the occasion of what was to be her final birthday—and what should I find there?”

He riffled through its dog-eared pages, located the passage he was looking for, and then solemnly began to read aloud: “‘It was the howling and yelling of those hellish creatures; and, on a sudden, we perceived two or three troops of wolves on our left, one behind us, and one on our front, so that we seemed to be surrounded with them!’

“You see? You see?” he cried. “As I live by bread, miss, I knew in my heart that these self-same perils I had been directed to in this book were fated to befall you today! It was my sworn duty to come with you; no more, no less. My duty!”

An uncomfortable silence descended on the company, during which even Mr. Blake stopped his pacing.
“Robinson Crusoe? What has Robinson Crusoe to do with this?” my employer demanded.

A shorter silence ensued, broken this time by Mr. Blake. “The good Betteredge firmly places his trust in Dafoe to steer him safely through life,” he explained.

“I do, sir, I do!” Mr. Betteredge came back, and with such passion in his voice that I wondered whether he had been drinking. “And you would be wise to, too, Mr. Bruff, lawyer though you may be!”

Lawyer that he is, my employer is not easily lost for words, but in this case he was rendered speechless. He finally responded with a shake of his head and turned his attention back to Mrs. Blake.

“Mrs. Blake, will you please continue?”

She nodded and took a deep breath. “It was a perfectly pleasant meal, Mr. Bruff, but then I noticed that the weather was taking a turn for the worse. I rose to leave. My aunt had pledged to come with us, as she wished to consult my husband over the hiring of a replacement footman. I suggested that she, Julia, and I take a cab home, but Aunt Merridew refused to hear of it, saying she would prefer to walk while the rain held off. We strolled back along Wigmore Street, and were just passing Portman Square when my aunt spied a woman selling flowers at the side of the road.

“‘Let me stop and buy a nosegay,’ she begged, and opened up her handbag to retrieve her purse. Suddenly a shriek rent the air, and then another and another, as we found ourselves surrounded by a pack of howling children, lunging and pecking at us from every side.

“I don’t know what would have become of us were it not for Penelope’s quick thinking. She pushed me and Aunt Merridew back against the railings, thrust the baby into my arms, snatched one of her father’s umbrellas and began to beat those monsters off, even as she shielded us with her body. It was so frightening! Their hands went darting everywhere—everywhere, all over us—though it was Penelope who bore the brunt of their attack. Their wailing, animal screeches finally brought people running, but the children saw them coming and swiftly scattered. By the time our rescuers got there not one of them remained.

“We were all understandably shaken, though no one was actually hurt except Penelope here. The men who had come to our aid kindly saw us home. I had Cook clean and bathe Penelope’s wounds, and asked Betteredge to make us all a restorative drink.”

Everyone looked towards the fireplace. Exhausted by his earlier outburst, the steward had fallen fast asleep.

“It was only while we were recovering,” Mrs. Blake continued, “that I realized the attack might have been purposely staged, perhaps to try to rob us, so we all checked our capes and belongings to see if anything had been taken.”

“And?”

“Well, this is the most perplexing part of all, Mr. Bruff. Nothing had been taken.”

The lawyer’s eyes narrowed. “But Mr. Blake’s summons…I was led to believe—”

“I repeat, nothing had been taken. But something had most definitely been left.”


Gooseberry continues next Friday, July 11th.
Copyright Michael Gallagher 2014.
You can follow Michael’s musings on the foolhardiness of this project. Just click on this link to his blog: Writing Gooseberry.

So what did you think? Love it, or hate it, or too early to tell? Find any typos or continuity errors? Do let me know! I’d love your feedback. Please use the comment box below.

“Left?”

“Inserted into Aunt Merridew’s bag. Here, see for yourself.”

Mrs. Blake rose and walked over to the table. She retrieved a small palm-sized leather case, not unlike a notebook, and carried it back to my employer.

“Open it.”

Mr. Bruff turned the case over in his hands, found the tiny clasp at the side, and unlatched it. All I could see was the occasional glint from where I was standing, but even so I was ninety-nine percent certain that what he was holding was a daguerreotype—a photograph on a sheet of silvered copper, mounted behind glass in a plush-lined case. There was a time not so long ago when I would have hopped up on a chair to get a better look. I should like to be able to tell you that I have since learned the value of patience, but it wouldn’t be true. What I have learned is that the upper classes don’t appreciate your boots on their furniture, no matter how pressing your needs may be.

“So,” my employer summed up, having studied the photograph at some length, “both you and your aunt were subjected to nuisance callers; a pane of glass was found broken in the servants’ quarters; and then today a gang of hooligans attacked you in broad daylight—not to rob you of anything, but to place this about your aunt’s person?”

“It sounds incredible, Mr. Bruff, I grant you, but how else can that daguerreotype have found its way into my aunt’s handbag?”

“Mrs. Merridew, do you recognize either of the people in this photograph?”

“No, Mr. Bruff, they’re perfect strangers.”

“Mrs. Blake?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“Mr. Blake?”

“I’ve never seen either of them in my life. But observe, sir—the boy. The tone of his skin…his manner of dress. Though the man’s a Caucasian—and most probably English, judging by the cut of his suit—the boy is an Indian, is he not?”

Mr. Bruff nodded. “And an extremely wealthy one, by the look of it.” He peered at the daguerreotype again. “It’s a very formal portrait,” he remarked, “carefully composed and beautifully rendered. It’s not the work of an amateur. And yet, notice the boy’s scarred right eye; there’s been no attempt to disguise the lad’s disfigurement.”

“You don’t suppose that this could have anything to do with that accursed Moonstone diamond, do you? I had hoped I’d put that business behind me for good.”

“Because the lad’s Indian? No, Mr. Blake, your investigations were faultless. I’m sure the boy’s race is purely a coincidence.”

“Then perhaps someone’s trying to discredit me. The political party I serve may be in opposition at the moment, but, trust me, sir, things are about to change. This unholy coalition—which would take its grain from other countries instead of from our own worthy farmers—they’re on their way out, and they know it! I wouldn’t put it past them to pull some dastardly stunt to embarrass us first.”

“If they were trying to embarrass you, Franklin, why give the photograph to my aunt?” Mrs. Blake inquired of her husband. “Why not to you?”

“A very good question,” said Mr. Bruff. “But what I’d like to know is why a street gang would go to these extraordinary lengths to do such a thing? That is the crux of this matter. What we need is someone versed in their ways who might help us unravel this puzzle. Gooseberry, I think the time has come for you to tell us what you can.”

I stepped forward, expecting to be quizzed about my credentials. Instead I found myself being fussed over handsomely by Mr. Blake.

“Upon my word! Gooseberry!” he cried, shaking my hand and slapping me on the back. “I didn’t see you there!”

Mr. Bruff quickly intervened and directed me to business. “What is your opinion,” he asked, “of all that you’ve heard here today?”

“First, can I please see the daguerreotype?”

“‘May I see the daguerreotype’,” Mr. Bruff corrected me, as he handed over the picture.
If anything it was even grander than I had imagined it: a portrait of a man and a boy seated side by side in chairs that could almost pass for thrones, in what can only be described as an opulently—and quite exotically—furnished room.

“Gooseberry, your contribution, please.”

I passed the picture back and turned to address Mrs. Blake. “Gangs such as you describe, miss, work in two particular ways, both of which depend on creating as much chaos and confusion as possible.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Well, to dazzle people’s senses, miss. It makes them slow to react.”

“I see. Go on.”

“In the first, the gang runs in, causes a commotion, grabs what it is they’re after, then scatters as soon as they can. It requires a little planning, but hardly any skill, which is why the second way is infinitely more satisfying—”

“Satisfying?”

As I considered what my response should be to this, I placed my hat, which their footman Samuel had obliged me to keep hold of, down on the nearest chair, earning myself a look of reproach from Miss Penelope, Mrs. Blake’s maid.

“Well, intellectually satisfying, if you like, miss. While the gang is wreaking chaos and everyone’s attention is diverted, somebody else—someone on the spot who seems quite unconnected to any of the troublemakers—he stealthily slips the desired items inside his jacket—an overly-large jacket like the one I’m wearing now.” Or down his trousers. Or under his hat. “Once the gang has scarpered, that person calmly walks away, taking his booty with him.” While lifting wallet after wallet as he saunters through the crowd. Ah, my glory days, indeed. “Later the gang meets up at some predetermined location to share out their spoils—in accordance with each person’s rank, of course, and the amount of risk each person took.” Well, the spoils that they know about, that is.

Mrs. Blake looked at me thoughtfully and asked, “Gooseberry, how do you know all of this?”

The time had come to own up to my past. I’d been thinking about how best to present it, and it seemed to me that what was called for here was a judicious mixture of remorse, honesty, and diffidence.

“Though it shames me to say it,” remorse, “there was no swifter, slipperier pickpocket in all of London,” honesty, “than…well, me, miss—your humble servant—Octavius Guy.” Diffidence dispensed in a generous measure.

Mrs. Blake burst out laughing.

“Please, Mrs. Blake, it’s true.”

“Gooseberry, you really mustn’t joke.”

“I’m not joking, miss.”

“I don’t believe it for a moment!”

Mr. Bruff gave a cautious lawyer’s cough that managed to get everyone’s attention. “He’s telling the truth,” he said quietly, and shot Mrs. Blake a meaningful look.

“But this is Gooseberry we’re talking about! Our Gooseberry! He’s no thief!”

“If he’s telling us the truth, then I think he should be made to prove it,” said Mr. Blake, a mischievous grin breaking out on his face that even his thick, black beard couldn’t hide. “I propose a challenge. Gooseberry, come and try to pick my pocket!”

“Please, sir—I don’t want to pick your pocket.”

“But I insist,” he said, stepping closer and closer till there was barely a foot between us. With everyone watching (save for the good Mr. Bruff, whose features plainly registered his disapproval), Mr. Blake leaned forward so that our noses were practically touching. On reflex, I found myself stumbling backwards, a move that Mr. Blake took as a sign of defeat.

“So much for the swiftest, slipperiest pickpocket in all of London,” he laughed, and, like a performer taking his curtain call, turned and bowed deeply to his wife.

“Franklin, look,” she advised him, pointing her finger at me.

Mr. Blake looked. His mouth dropped open. He stared, blinking in amazement at the silver cigarette case in my hand.

He patted the vicinity of his jacket’s left inside-breast pocket, feeling for something that was no longer there. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mrs. Blake’s aunt place her embroidery in her handbag and hug the handbag to her chest. My heart suddenly crumpled; I should have realized how people might not take too kindly to discovering a thief in their midst.

Mr. Blake regarded me solemnly for several long seconds. “How did you manage it?” he asked at last. “I didn’t feel a thing. Not a thing.”

“It’s just a skill I have,” I replied, preparing to duck his blows as I handed him back his case.

“During my travels in the East, five men attempted to pick my pocket—and five men ended up regretting it. But you! That wasn’t skill, young man; it was art! By all that’s wondrous, you’re going to have to teach me how you did that!”

“Teach you to steal things? No, Mr. Blake! It wouldn’t be right.”

Mrs. Blake arched her eyebrow at the both of us and said, “I’m glad to see that one of you is old enough and wise enough to appreciate right from wrong. So, tell me, Gooseberry, expert pickpocket and moral compass that your are, in your opinion, what do you think happened to us today?”

“It’s very hard to say, miss. I can’t begin to fathom why a gang would want to plant something on you, especially if it’s something that holds no apparent meaning for any of you. However, from what you’ve told me, I’m fairly sure that the method they employed was the second one I outlined. Your attackers were simply the distraction. Somebody else—someone on the spot, seemingly unconnected—was responsible for slipping that photograph into your aunt’s handbag.”

“But who?” she asked. “The only people present were my aunt, myself, Penelope and her father, and my baby daughter Julia. You surely don’t suggest that one of us did it?”

“I beg your pardon, miss, but you’re mistaken.”

“Gooseberry, I know who was there. There was nobody else, believe me.”

“But there was, miss. There was the flower girl; the one selling flowers by the side of the road. Did anyone see where she went to?”

Mrs. Blake stared. “She was with us, I think. I really can’t remember. Aunt Merridew, do you recall?”

“I was too terrified to notice, dear. I expect my nerves will be shattered for weeks.”

“Penelope, what about you?”

“I’m sorry, Miss Rachel,” the maid responded shakily, speaking for the first time since we’d entered the room. “I was too busy battling off those horrid beasts of children. I have no idea where the woman went.”

Mrs. Blake glanced across the room to where her faithful retainer lay dozing. Choosing not to wake the old man, she turned her attention back to me.

“So you think it was the woman selling flowers?” she said.

“I certainly think it’s possible, miss. I can’t see who else it might be. Do you think you can you describe her?”

Mrs. Blake frowned. “She was a big girl. I remember that.”

“Very big. And certainly no beauty,” added her aunt. “A poor, ungainly thing, crouching on her haunches beside her basket. I recall seeing her pock-marked face and taking pity on her, which is why I insisted that we stop to buy a posy.”

“I don’t remember pock-marks,” Miss Penelope cut in, apologizing for the interruption, “but I have to say she wasn’t all that big.” On finding herself the center of attention, she quickly looked away. A moment later she was wringing her hands again.

“Of course, I could be wrong,” Mrs. Merridew admitted, “but I honestly don’t think that I am. You see, although I couldn’t say why, I was truly fascinated by the creature. There was something utterly compelling about her state of wretchedness.”

Miss Penelope’s objection aside, a picture was already beginning to form in my mind. “What color was her hair?” I asked. “And how was she dressed?”

“Coarse, dark brown shoulder-length hair, parted in the middle and pulled back into a bun,” the aunt reeled off excitedly, her distrust of me temporarily forgotten. “Yellow cap and ribbons instead of the usual headscarf affair. A light gray blouse, which hung from her shoulders like a sack, and a tattered, dark gray skirt. A filthy red shawl, one end of which she held across her mouth, I imagine to try to hide her scars.”

“I remember the shawl,” Mrs. Blake agreed, her nose wrinkling up at the thought. “I wouldn’t put it anywhere near my lips.”

“Broad-shouldered? Arms like hams?”

“Why, yes.”

“And softly spoken?”

“So softly spoken I could hardly make out anything she said,” Mrs. Blake replied. “Aunt Merridew had to ask the price of the posy several times.”

The old lady nodded in agreement.

“Kept her eyes averted? Never once looked at you directly?”

“Gooseberry? Do you know her?”

I was almost positive that I did, back in the Life. Everyone knew her—Big Bertha, they called her. Bertha, whose real name was Bert.

I can’t rightly say whether it was out of a sense of propriety or a sense of embarrassment that I chose to keep the delicate nature of Bertha’s gender to myself. Not that it mattered either way; the important thing was that we now had a lead.

Mr. Bruff wound up the meeting by promising the Blakes that I would follow up on it the very next day. He also requested they entrust him with the daguerreotype, as he had an idea of his own he wished to pursue.

“May I please take another look at it,” I asked on the cab journey back, remembering just in time his strictures over the use of the verbs can and may. He pulled it out and handed it to me, but I was sorely disappointed. I had hoped to divine some link between the people in the photograph and Big Bertha. But study it as I might, nothing came to mind.

The streets were deserted and bracingly chilly as I made my way homeward up the Gray’s Inn Road, stopping only to collect a couple of eel pies and some macaroons from the eating-house on the way. Turning east, I set off along the New Road, past the site of the old smallpox hospital. They’re in the process of building a railway terminus there, which locals claim will bring train-loads of people from Scotland—though why any of them would want to visit my own little part of the world was a complete mystery to me. But, ah, the wonders of living in the Golden Age of Steam, eh? Board a train in the morning in Edinburgh and disembark in the evening at King’s Cross!

I have lodgings off the Caledonian Road, or the ‘Cally Road’ as it’s commonly called. There’s talk of them erecting a cattle market up by the prison, but till then the Cally remains the principal route into Smithfield for every drover herding their cattle from the north. The area’s much quieter at night, mind, without a single cow’s lowing to be heard; so quiet in fact that, with your window open, you can hear the lapping of the nearby canal and the gentle thud of the coal barges moored up together in pairs.

That night, as I rounded the corner, I saw that my window was closed, but a flicker of light in the glass warned me someone was already home. I ran up the stairs two at a time and silently pushed open the door.

“Octavius!” came the shout of pure joy from inside.

A small, lithe figure of a boy cannonballed into me from halfway across the room, gripping me so tightly that I nearly let go of the pies. My younger brother Julius.

“Did you have a good day today, Octavius? Did you get to do anything interesting? We sold all the fish on the stall by four o’clock, so I got to come home early. I came straight here, Octavius, just like you said to do; I didn’t hang round. Did you bring us anything for supper? It doesn’t matter if you didn’t because I had a hot potato for my lunch.”

I wriggled out of his grasp and, like a conjurer, made a show of presenting him with the pies. His eyes lit up like beacons.

“Eel pies?” he cried, dancing with excitement. “You know they’re my favorite!”

We set the table and ate, both of us savoring for as long as we could the rich jellied meat in its crust. Afterwards I scoured the plates with cold ashes from the stove while Julius collected his supply of scrap paper—scavenged from the waste bins at the office—and then proudly retrieved his treasured pencil from the shelf.

“What word will we do tonight?” he asked.

“I don’t know…what word do you think will be useful?” This was a routine we repeated every night.

“How about ‘sprats’?” he suggested, after a moment’s thought. “We had sprats on the stall today.”

I carefully wrote down the word for him and he began to copy it. I sat and watched him as he wrote, his face set hard with concentration and his small, pink tongue sticking out. I could have spent a lifetime watching him that way, but eventually the candle burned too low.

We were up the next day before dawn, for we both had early starts; Julius off to his fish stall in Old Street, and me on my hunt to find Bertha. Bertha was a creature of habit, so I knew where he’d probably be, the day in question being a Tuesday. The flower market at Covent Garden.

The sun was still struggling to rise as I made my way down Drury Lane and into Long Acre, dodging wagons loaded to the brim with fresh produce. Although it was early, the piazza was crowded and the streets leading into it jammed. I passed stalls stacked high with cauliflowers and cabbages, swerving to avoid the bustling porters. Did my fingers itch to perform as they once had? No. But I did wonder if Mr. Bruff had given any thought to what he was asking of me, requiring me, as it did, to rub shoulders again with my former partners from the Life.

If I remembered correctly, Bertha’s pitch was on the west side of the square, at the rear of the Actors’ Church. Six years may have passed since I’d last seen him, but if I knew Bertha, he’d rather kill than give up such a desirable site.

And I was right. As I turned the corner, there he was. Dressed in gray and draped in his dirty red cape, his head bowed low to show off the bright yellow cap and ribbons he wore, he was squatting on the pavement and looking quite ungainly as he sorted through his basket full of flowers.

He must have seen my boots as I approached, for all at once he pulled his shawl across his mouth, bowed his head a little lower, and quietly began to mumble in a deep, hoarse whisper: “Buy a nice posy from a poor, honest woman, sir? Or a bouquet for your sweet, faithful wife?”

“Hello, Bertha.”

Big Bertha’s face shot up. “Oh, my Gawd, as I live and breathe!” he squawked. “I’d recognize those bulging big ogles anywhere! It’s you. It’s young Octopus, back from the dead or Van Diemen’s Land!”

Octopus. My other nickname.


Gooseberry continues next Friday, July 18th.
Copyright Michael Gallagher 2014.
You can follow Michael’s musings on the foolhardiness of this project. Just click on this link to his blog: Writing Gooseberry.

So what did you think? Love it, or hate it, or still too early to tell? Find any typos or continuity errors? Do let me know! A big thank you to Lara and Alice who have sent me feedback, but I’d love your feedback, too. Please use the comment box below.

I like to think that I am a man of the world—or, to be more accurate, having attained the grand age of fourteen, I am now two-thirds of a man of the world—and I would have you know that in my time I have seen both men dressed as women and women dressed as men. Of these, some have been most convincing. Many have been less so. Bertha, I’m afraid, didn’t even make it into this category. There was nothing feminine or effeminate about him whatsoever. In a sense he was simply a big, jowly bloke in a dress. No wonder Mrs. Blake’s aunt had been fascinated by him. I’m sure she’d never seen anything like him in her life.

“Look at you!” he cried, rubbing his eyes as if he’d seen a ghost. “My, ain’t you grown! Why, you’re almost a fully-fledged omi,” he said, meaning ‘man’ in palari, the actors’ slang he liked to use. “So where the hell you been, then?”

“Well, I wasn’t sent to some Australian penal colony, if that’s what you imagined.”

He blinked. “Wot, then?”

“I simply needed a break from the Life, that’s all.”

“But where d’you take yourself off to? Ain’t no one just disappears like that.”

No? I’d managed it pretty well up until now.

“I went to live in Edinburgh,” I lied.

“Edinbra?” He considered this carefully. “Ain’t that somewhere up norf?”

By the time I agreed that it was, he’d already begun to lose interest. Instead he was employing his critical eye to give me a quick once-over.

“Well, well, well! You’ve grown to be quite a looker, ’aven’t ya? You seeing anyone, then? If not, I’d be more than happy to—”
“No, Bertha, I’m really flattered, truly I am, but…”

“No, no, no! I ain’t talking about me!” He wagged a fleshy finger in my face. “You got to learn to lower those sights of yours, lad. No, I was trying to tell you ’bout this matrimonial bureau wot I runs now—strictly a sideline, o’ course. A young omi such as yourself, I could get you fixed up in a jiffy.”
“But what if I don’t want to be fixed up?”

He wasn’t listening. Something or someone had caught his attention on the other side of the piazza.
“’Ere, Florrie, get those scrawny little hips over ’ere! Octopus, I want you to meet Florrie. Florrie, this here’s Octopus.”

“Octopus?” The girl Bertha had summoned was gawking shamelessly at my eyes. “That’s an unusual name,” she said. She was dressed, as most of the market girls were, in a blouse and skirt, with a shawl draped over her shoulders. Her blonde hair was pulled back from her face and tied up with a black velvet band.

“Forget those bona big ogles, girl,” chortled Bertha, referring to my eyes. “It’s his lills you ought to be worried about. ’E’s got eight of ’em.”

“Eight?” Florrie’s gaze dropped to my hands in a panic. She gave a sigh of relief when she saw I only had two.

“This young omi used to troll through the streets lifting wallets left, right, and center—just like an octopus would if it ’ad any real appreciation of money! You keep your eye on him, girl, or his lills will be all over you in no time.” The girl blushed as Bertha gave a deep throaty chuckle. “First assignation’s free,” he continued, now addressing me, “it’s the second that’ll cost ya; strictly no third unless it’s a wedding!” Bertha gave me a big, theatrical wink. “Got to make it look proper, see; I won’t have no one thinking I’m procuring. Me, I’m a respectable woman!”

Florrie and I regarded each other in a state of nervous embarrassment. She looked almost alarmed; I’m sure I did too.

“Young people these days!” griped Bertha. “No sense of romance! Go on, Florrie, if he ain’t going to kiss ya, you may as well give us a hand with these posies.”

The two of them knelt on the pavement and began binding stems with green twine.

“So how’s the flower business going?” I asked. “Everything in the garden blooming?”

“Mustn’t grumble, mustn’t grumble,” he replied. “’Ere, wot do you think of my new line of patter?” He bowed his head, pulled his shawl across his mouth, and started whispering the same catchphrase he’d whispered before: “Buy a nice posy from a poor, honest woman, sir? Or a bouquet for your sweet, faithful wife?”

“It’s good. Really good.” It was a definite improvement on the one I remembered: ‘Varder me dolly flowers, sir.’—meaning, look at my pretty flowers—‘Get ’em quick before they die.’
Bertha grinned.

“I hear you were over on Wigmore Street yesterday,” I said.

The grin faded. “Oh? And where d’you hear that?”

“Some friends of mine were accosted…by a gang. The odd thing is, when I asked them about it, they managed to describe you perfectly.”

“Friends of yours, eh?”

“People I care about, yes.”

He took a moment to digest this. “Shame,” he said. “Seems like a poor, decent woman can’t go nowhere no more wiffout being set on by ruffians.”

“Wigmore Street’s a bit outside your territory, Bertha. And that got me thinking. This job had to be special—planned to order by someone much higher up.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know, ’cos I wasn’t there!” he bawled.

We eyed each other warily, like a pair of fractious circus tigers, until Bertha finally cracked and looked away. It wasn’t stalemate yet, however, for I still had one move left to me.

“So you weren’t the one who slipped the daguerreotype in the old lady’s bag?” I said.

For the second time in twenty minutes, Bertha’s pock-marked face shot up. Florrie, who’d been watching our little exchange with increasing discomfort, rose to her feet and announced she was leaving.

“No, you stay right where you are,” Bertha growled at her, even though he was glaring at me. “It’s young Octopus here wot needs to leave. Go on, Octopus—” And here he bellowed a two-word Anglo-Saxon phrase at me, causing everyone in the square to look.

I beat a tactical retreat into the bustling piazza, and hid myself behind a barrow-load of celery. I’d purposely kicked the hornets’ nest, and I wanted to see what Bertha would do next. I didn’t have to wait long. Leaving his stall in Florrie’s care, he threw his shawl over his shoulders and set off at a cracking pace down King Street. Despite the considerable number of pedestrians, he made an easy target to follow. His yellow cap and ribbons bobbed a good six inches above most of the heads in the crowd.
At the corner he turned north, as if heading towards Long Acre, but then pulled up short outside a public house. I knew the pub, but only by reputation: they regularly staged bare-knuckled prize fights there. It was the Lamb and Flag, referred to hereabouts as the Bucket of Blood. After a moment’s hesitation, Bertha went inside.

I crept up to the windows and peered in. Though the hour was still early, business was brisk, as it tends to be for any pub on a market day. I scoured the room, but there was no sign of Bertha. I stepped back a little and gazed up at the windows above. Was one of the old crew up there, holding court in a private suite? Perhaps even Ned himself, if he still happened to be in charge. How would he react when he heard I was back, I wondered?

It seemed as if I had a choice. Burst in and confront him, or whoever it was who was running things now—a strategy that hadn’t played so well with Bertha—or wait and see what would happen. I took a coin from my pocket and flipped it. Tails. Better to wait.

I returned to the corner and stood by the railings, watching and biding my time. Ten minutes passed, and then twenty. At last the door opened, and Bertha emerged.

I held my ground for a moment as he marched away, curious to see if anyone else would appear. When no one did, I sped off after him, just in time to see him cross the road into Bedford Street. At the Strand he turned left and began to head east, past Temple Bar into Fleet Street. The pavement here was not so crowded, so I could afford to fall back a little.

Still he trundled eastwards, past St. Paul’s, past London Bridge, then past the Tower. Now came the docks with their innumerable ships moored up in miniature cities. Gulls reeled and circled among the masts against the steel-gray, mid-morning sky. Surrounded by beer-bellied dockers, Bertha was in his element, lapping up the hoots and wolf whistles he’d started to attract.

Somewhere between the London Dock and the East London Dock, Bertha paused. He peered to his right, then took a road that led down towards the river. A few minutes later he made another quick turn, this time to his left. As I came round the corner, I saw that he’d reached his destination. He’d joined a small line of people queuing up outside an octagonal marble tower. As those in the queue were all dressed rather fashionably, Bertha stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb. So did the tower, come to that. Being new, and built of pale gray marble, it seemed truly at odds with the neighboring warehouses, all of which had seen better days. Gradually the line grew shorter and Bertha vanished within.

I followed a minute or so later, in time to see him picking a fight with a man in a ticket booth. “But it’s only a penny!” I heard the chap saying, as I popped my head round the entrance.

“A penny’s a penny!” growled Bertha. “And I’m not some damned sightseer; I’m ’ere on business! Now bleedin’ well let me in!”

Grudgingly the fellow complied, operating the narrow brass turnstile to allow him to pass.

I made my way across the blue and white tiled floor and handed over my penny. The man still looked livid from his encounter with Bertha, so I was dreading asking for a receipt—a matter of some necessity for me, for Mr. Bruff’s clerk who handles the petty cash claims is a tyrant where receipts are concerned. But before I’d plucked up the courage to do so, the man pressed some kind of lever, and I was forcibly propelled through the turnstile gates and spat out on the other side. I suppose I could have knocked on the back door of the ticket booth, but even I have my pride. In front of me loomed a doorway. Without knowing quite what to expect, I squared my shoulders and stepped on through.

I found myself at the top a circular shaft, lit entirely by gaslight. A lengthy spiral staircase descended forty feet or so to a marble floor below. Here and there, there were landings to break the descent, hung with paintings of palaces and waterfalls. There was even the odd plaster statue or two. Ghostly organ music echoed up from the depths, Rule Britannia, The Marseillaise, and a number of other tunes that sounded stirring enough, though I couldn’t tell you what they were. Below me, I saw that Bertha had nearly reached the bottom of the stairs. I quickened up my pace; I didn’t want to lose him in the crowd.

He barely glanced at the sideshow attractions dotted about the room (‘Your Fortune Told’, ‘The Egyptian Rune Reader’, ‘The Monkey Answers All Your Questions’), and made directly for the pair of tunnel entrances that stood opposite the stairs. Choosing the right-hand one, he set off down it, with me still in hot pursuit.

The tunnel seemed to stretch for as far as the eye could see. Strategically positioned gas lamps lit the way, and every so often there was a gap in the wall that allowed access from one tunnel to the other. Stalls selling various lines of cheap goods were set up in each of these gaps, staffed in the main by pallid young women, with skin that was even paler than mine. Ahead of me, Bertha drew up in front of one such stall and began to examine the merchandise. As I huddled against the tunnel wall, I felt a drop of ice cold water hit the back of my neck and trickle its way down my collar. By now I had a very good idea where I was.

Bertha was on the move again. As I passed the stall where he’d stopped, I glanced down at the ribbons he’d been inspecting. Each had the words ‘Souvenir of the Thames Tunnel’ woven through it. I’d been right. Here I was in the world’s first sub-aquatic tunnel, well below the bed of the Thames, with ten thousand of tons of water pressing down on me!

My moment of reflection came at a cost. When I looked up, Bertha had vanished.

He couldn’t have gone far, I reasoned; my attention had wavered for a few seconds at most. I kept going in the direction he’d been heading. To my left was another gap, this time with a stall selling magic lantern slides. Twenty yards on, there was another, this one a coffee shop decked out with tables, nearly all of which were occupied. An eccentric-looking waiter in a costermonger’s jacket, stitched with rows of mother-of-pearl buttons, weaved his way between the tables delivering drinks and light refreshments. Bertha couldn’t have got any further than this.

I moved swiftly through the underwater coffee shop, searching amongst the faces, till I came out in the adjacent tunnel. I peered up and down. Bertha was nowhere to be seen. I retraced my steps back to the shaft, checking each of the stalls as I went. As impossible as it seemed, Bertha had given me the slip.
I loitered at the base of the stairs and watched the procession of people. I made a tour of the room, and examined the organ that was churning out music. Driven by steam, it somehow managed to play itself. I considered consulting the monkey, the one that ‘Answers All Your Questions’, for I had several that were puzzling me deeply. The problem was his method. Two nuts were placed on a board before him; one on a square that said ‘yes’, the other on a square that said ‘no’. The nut he chose first indicated his answer. Is Bertha still in the tunnel? Is Bertha still in the right-hand tunnel? At a penny a shot, and with only yes-or-no answers to guide me, it could cost a small fortune to locate Bertha this way. I took out a coin, but it wasn’t for the monkey. Should I stay or should I go? I flipped it.

Heads. Stay, then.

I wandered back to the coffee shop, took a seat, and ordered a piece of cake from the man in the button-clad jacket. Idly I wondered where he kept his supplies, for he was doing a roaring trade.
The afternoon wore on. I began to notice that nearly everything in the tunnel cost a penny. It was rather clever, really; for the price of a couple of nice, fat herrings anyone could buy a piece of tat to remind themselves of their time spent down here. I bought a candle at one stall and moved on to the next, which just happened to sell writing equipment. It was staffed by a young woman with bright auburn hair, whose mouth gaped open in an undisguised yawn. I couldn’t resist following her example, and gave a big yawn myself.

“Who buys these things?” I asked, as I browsed through the pencils and dip-pens laid out on the white marble counter-top, each stamped with the brand, ‘Souvenir of the Thames Tunnel’.

“Tourists,” she replied without enthusiasm.

“How much?” I asked, selecting a fine looking pencil for Julius. “No, don’t tell me. It’s a penny, right?” I saw her eyes roll towards the ceiling. “Oh, and may I have a receipt, please?” I added.

“A receipt for a penny?”

“If you would be so kind…?”

She threw me a look of pure hatred.

Before too long the music ground to a halt, and stewards began to herd everyone out. “Ladies and Gentlemen! The Tunnel is closing in fifteen minutes. Please make your way to the exits!”

I didn’t need to be told twice. I nipped up the stairs and was outside in a shot. Night had fallen, but it couldn’t have been late. I took shelter in a nearby doorway and watched as people emerged—first the patrons, who took their sweet time about it, and then the staff (including the monkey), who were champing at the bit to get home. The waiter from the coffee shop had changed out of his jacket. He looked positively run-of-the-mill without it. The last person to leave was the man from the ticket booth; it was he who was in charge of locking up. He took the task seriously—he checked the doors twice before tucking his keys in his pocket. I followed him as he set off towards the river, making, as it turned out, for the nearest public house.

Retrieving the receipt for my pencil, I crumpled it a little (to add an air of authenticity), then ran up and tapped him on the elbow.

“Yes?” he said, peering down at me, as his fingers closed round the handle of the pub’s glazed door.

“Sir,” I addressed him in my most earnest voice, “I believe that you might have dropped this.” I held out the receipt for inspection.

He looked at it, recognized the commercially-printed header, and dismissed my claim with a wave of his hand. Then he pulled the door open and stepped into the pub, shutting me out on the footpath.

Though I kept my face blank, on the inside I was beaming, for I now had his full set of keys.


Gooseberry continues next Friday, July 25th.
Copyright Michael Gallagher 2014.
You can follow Michael’s musings on the foolhardiness of this project. Just click on this link to his blog: Writing Gooseberry.

So what did you think? Love it, or hate it, or still too early to tell? Find any typos or continuity errors? Please let me know—use the comment box below.

“Where was you yesterday?” George hissed into my left ear, as he trudged beside me down the corridor in the direction of Mr. Crabbit’s office.

“Yes, where was you?” echoed his namesake in my right. “We was made to run errands!”

“That’s right. Errands. All of them!”

I thought about different ways to respond to this—including (but not limited to, as Mr. Bruff would have me add) the obvious, the fact that, as office boys, this was their job—but then it suddenly dawned on me. If I wanted to cause a reaction, why not tell them the truth?

“George, George, if you really want to know, yesterday Mr. Bruff paid me to sit in a coffee shop and eat cake.”

“You was eating cake while we was running us-selves ragged?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And Mr. Bruff was paying you?”

“Well, he will have paid me as soon as I claim back my expenses,” I said. And, with that, I pulled my receipts from my pocket and knocked briskly on Mr. Crabbit’s door.

A crotchety voice called out, “Enter!”

To rub salt into their wounds, I purposely left the door ajar as I strode into the petty cash clerk’s tiny sanctuary, so that George and George would be able to witness the transaction for themselves. As it turned out, this was a gross miscalculation on my part.

Mr. Crabbit inspected each of the three receipts I handed him as if he were a judge assessing the admissibility of evidence in a murder case.

“What’s this, boy?” he asked.

“It’s a receipt for a pencil, sir. I had to buy a pencil in order to make some notes.” The way I saw it, I had bought the pencil for my brother out of my own pocket; I was simply using the receipt in lieu of the one I had failed to get at the ticket booth.

“I can see it’s for a pencil, boy. No, look again. Look carefully. What’s this?”

“It’s crumpled?”

He smiled and lowered his spectacles on to the bridge of his nose. “Yes, it’s crumpled.”

“So?”

“Observe, boy.” Without turning to look himself, he raised a short, bony finger and pointed to the sign that hung behind him on the wall:

No illegible receipts
No indecipherable receipts
No torn receipts
No crumpled receipts
No defaced receipts
No stained or water-damaged receipts
No receipts with additions or alterations
No receipts that require further explanation

A burst of muffled sniggering wafted through the doorway. Mr. Crabbit rose from his desk like a whirlwind—not an easy task for a slight, balding man of his particular stature—and pulled the door open as if he were about to rip it off its hinges, unstoppable force of nature that he had become.

“George and George. Why am I not surprised? Well? What do you require?”

“N-nothing, sir.”

“N-no, sir, nothing.”

“Then be about your business, both of you, before I report your idleness to Mr. Bruff.”

Mr. Crabbit shut the door and calmly returned to his desk.

Having collected my money, but only for the cake and the candle, I made my way up the stairs to Mr. Bruff’s office. The Georges were perched on the bench outside. They scowled at me as I knocked and entered.

I was in two minds as to just how much of yesterday’s adventure I was prepared to share with Mr. Bruff. Without incriminating Miss Penelope directly—a thing that I wished to avoid until I’d had a chance to investigate her myself—it seemed prudent not to reveal too much. Too many facts were bound to lead to questions, and questions demanded answers—answers that I wasn’t yet ready to give. Mr. Bruff, bless him, was quite entranced by the dry and rather limited account of my movements, as I described how I had traced the flower girl in question, followed her to a nearby pub noted for hosting bare-knuckled fistfights, then trailed her as she made her way east as far as the Thames Tunnel, where, upon entering, she had managed to give me the slip. I summed up by saying that I was sure I could trace the girl again, and that I had devised a plan for making her talk.

“Excellent work, Gooseberry,” said Mr. Bruff. “I really don’t know how you manage it.”

It’s easy, I thought. I simply leave out all the important parts, such as the fact that the flower girl was actually a man, who was currently moping about in my lodgings, too scared to set foot outside my door. And he would happily whistle like a canary if he thought I might turf him out.

Aloud I said, “Sir, it occurs to me that the gang may attack again.”

It was almost certain they would, now that they thought Mrs. Blake’s aunt was in possession of the daguerreotype.

“You may be right. I’ll warn the Blakes to take extra precautions.”

“I think you should include Mrs. Merridew, too.”

Mr. Bruff grunted his assent. He took out a sheet of paper and began to scrawl a hasty note.

“George!” he called out at the top of his voice. I kept my eye on the door, curious to see which one of them would appear.

It was the younger of the two who answered the call. He glared at me mutinously as Mr. Bruff gave him his instructions. When it came time for him to leave, instead of going, he hovered like a lump in the doorway. He turned a bright beet-red when Mr. Bruff asked what the matter was.

“Sir, why can’t you send him?” he said, pointing his finger at me. “George and me, we ran all the errands yesterday. Why can’t he go this time?”

Mr. Bruff raised his eyebrows. “Gooseberry? No, it’s out of the question. I require Gooseberry for other duties.”

“Like bleedin’ eating cake,” George muttered.

“I beg your pardon?”

He scowled angrily at Mr. Bruff and then he scowled at me. “I didn’t say nothing,” he replied at last, before finally shutting the door.

For several seconds Mr. Bruff sat staring at the spot where George had been standing. “Would you believe that boy is only sixteen? The other one’s seventeen, yet they waddle about like a pair of middle-aged men. I only have myself to blame. I should never have allowed them to become so slothful or fat.”

Mr. Bruff rose, took a key from his desk drawer, and proceeded to open his office safe. He extracted the daguerreotype, dusted it down with his fingers, and placed it in his pocket.

“Come,” he said. “We have an appointment with a certain gentleman in Hanover Square. I am hopeful that he will be able to identify the people in this picture.”

Again he requested my presence in the cab. As he was in an amiable mood, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to bring up the matter of my expenses.

“Mr. Bruff, sir,” I began, “last night I was obliged to take a cab home from Wapping. As I didn’t have any money, I was forced to find an alternative method of payment.”

Mr. Bruff stared at me. “Octavius, please tell me that you didn’t resort to stealing?”

“I didn’t filch anyone’s wallet, sir.” Which was true as far as it went. Mr. Bruff looked touchingly relieved. “But if I am to investigate this case as you would have me do…” I left it up to my employer to finish the sentence.

“Then you will require sufficient funds to enable you move about the city at will. Yes, I can see that. I shall have a word with Mr. Crabbit when we return to the office. He will provide you with an allowance by the end of the day.”

The cab turned off Oxford Street into Hanover Square and pulled up outside an impressive-looking building, which, Mr. Bruff explained, was a rather exclusive gentleman’s club. He also warned me that there might be a problem about my accompanying him in. There was. The man at the desk was quite adamant that on no account were children to be admitted to the Oriental Club. We remained in that polite state of impasse until Mr. Murthwaite, the gent we had come to see, arrived and insisted that the three of us be shown to a private chamber, out of sight and out of sound of any member who might object to my obviously troublesome and distressing presence. The man at the desk regarded me sullenly, and called for one of his minions. I returned his look with a beaming smile as the underling led us away.

We were shown to a surprisingly nice room, the likes of which Mr. Bruff might call ‘well appointed’. It had a roaring fire down one end, and prints of Indian scenes on the walls. Upon entering, Mr. Murthwaite, a tall, lean man with skin the color of mahogany, turned to my employer and clasped his hand warmly.

“It’s been a long time,” he said.

“Too long, sir,” Mr. Bruff replied. “May I present Octavius Guy, one of my most trusted and valued employees, who, you might be interested to hear, was instrumental in unraveling the mystery of the Moonstone diamond?”

A pair of steady, attentive eyes studied me with interest. The gentleman whom they belonged to reached out and offered me his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Octavius.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, sir.”

“Mr. Murthwaite is the celebrated Indian traveler, famed for his exploits in the East,” Mr. Bruff explained.

“If we have time, I do hope you will honor me by relating your contribution to the Moonstone affair, for I had some small part to play in it myself. However, I believe Mr. Bruff wishes to consult me on another matter first.”

“I do, sir.” My employer took the daguerreotype from his pocket. “I wonder if you can cast any light on this?”

Mr. Murthwaite opened the case and gazed at the photograph. For a minute he neither moved nor spoke.

“What is it you would like to know?” he asked presently.

“Can you identify either of these people?”

“Certainly. During my time in India I was privileged to meet them both. The man’s name is Login. Dr. John Login. Solid sort. Dependable. The boy seated next to him is Duleep Singh, the Maharajah of Lahore, leader of the deeply troubled Sikh Empire.”

“The boy’s a maharajah?” I burst out, unable to hold my tongue. Note to self: if you can keep your expression suitably blank when you’re pocketing things, surely you can learn to control your tongue?

Mr. Murthwaite smiled. “He most certainly is. He was five when he assumed the title. He would would be about your age now, Octavius. I imagine this photograph was taken two or three years ago.”

“This Dr. Login, is he some kind of adviser?” inquired Mr. Bruff.

“In one sense, yes. Though it may be fairer to say that he is boy’s warder. It’s a long story.”

“Sir, I would be grateful if you can tell me anything you can.”

Mr. Murthwaite nodded. “Then we should sit.”

He herded us towards the fireplace and we took our seats around the fire.

“Duleep’s father was the great Ranjit Singh, the Lion of the Punjab,” he began, “who conquered the rival Sikh nations and forged them into one great Sikh empire. During the course of his life he took several wives, who between them bore him a total of eight sons. Only two of these were ever recognized as his legitimate offspring, however: Kharak, the eldest, and Duleep, the youngest, who was born barely a year before Ranjit’s death in 1839.

“Naturally, it fell to Kharak to succeed him. But within three months Kharak found himself brought up on charges of sedition, the most damning of which alleged that he’d been colluding with the British. You can bet your last cheroot that these charges were pure trumpery, for they were based solely on the rumors spread by one man—Ranjit’s old adviser, the Wazir Dhian Dogra, a deceitful wretch who had designs on the throne himself. Nevertheless Kharak was deposed and imprisoned, and died within the year, the victim of slow and gradual poisoning.

“It was Kharak’s son, the nineteen-year-old Nau Nihal, who inherited the title on his father’s deposition—though he was not to hold it for long, as things turned out. He was struck by falling masonry when re-entering the Fort of Lahore, having just overseen his father’s cremation. While his companion was killed outright, Nau Nihal was merely wounded. Dhian had the unconscious ruler dragged inside, and then ordered the gates to be locked, so that none, not even his mother Chand Kaur, could enter the fort. By the time she was permitted to see him, a strange transformation had occurred. What was once a simple flesh wound had become a mortal injury. Somehow his skull was now cracked wide open, and Nau Nihal lay dead.”

Mr. Bruff threw me a nervous look. I think he was worried that the tone the story was beginning to take on was unsuitable for my young, delicate ears. Bless his naive, deluded soul!

“Chand Kaur now proclaimed herself regent,” Mr. Murthwaite continued, “ruling in the place of Nau Nihal’s as yet unborn son, for, as it happened, Nau Nihal’s young widow was with child. Chand’s brazenness so infuriated the wazir Dhian that he wrote at once to Sher Singh, son of Ranjit by his estranged first wife, urging him to muster his troops and march on Lahore. Sher Singh did as the wazir requested, and after the ensuing battle, Chand Kaur conceded defeat. She agreed to retire to her late son’s palace on one singularly ill-conceived condition: that she receive a pension of a million rupees. It was a fatal error of judgment on her part. When her daughter-in-law gave birth to a stillborn infant—signaling the end of Kharak’s bloodline and any further claim to power—Dhian replaced her servants with his own, and had them club her brutally to death.”

“I say,” Mr. Bruff interjected, “remember the boy is listening!”

“Do not trouble yourselves on my account, good sirs,” I tried to reassure them both. “There’s nothing I love more than a good story, and the bloodthirstier the better, as far as I’m concerned.”

Mr. Bruff nearly choked. Mr. Murthwaite, on the other hand, burst out laughing.

“Then I shall try to make the climax as gruesome as I can,” he promised. “Now, where was I? Ah, yes. Sher Singh. By all accounts the new leader was anxious to re-establish harmonious relations between all the feuding Sikh factions. He managed to broker approximately twenty months of relative peace, but then, one morning, when he was attending a friendly wrestling match on the outskirts of the city, he was lured outside by a pair of brothers who’d been supporters of the late Chand Kaur. Sher had always had a fascination with weapons, so when they offered to show him their latest rifle, he readily agreed to accompany them. As Sher took the barrel in his hand to examine it, the first brother pulled the trigger and shot the maharajah in the chest. The second brother then took his sword and hacked off the poor man’s head. That done, the pair rode away to Lahore, carrying the severed head with them. They tracked down the wazir and made him grovel at their feet, then placed the rifle at his temple and put a bullet through his brain. Which is how the five-year-old Duleep came to rule an empire, although, of course, it was his mother who acted as his regent.”

“Extraordinary!” I cried, clapping for all I was worth while Mr. Bruff sat fuming.

Mr. Murthwaite took out his cigarette case and extracted a cigarette, having offered Mr. Bruff one first. He lit it, drew the smoke into his lungs, then blew it out again towards the ceiling.

“In December of 1845,” he said, “Britain declared war on the Sikh nation, in what was to become known as the First Anglo-Sikh War. They—or should I say we?—won.” I sensed a touch of bitterness in his voice. “Although they kept Duleep as the nominal figurehead, they imprisoned his mother, and subsequently sent her into exile. After the Second Anglo-Sikh War four years later, Britain annexed the Punjab, deposed young Duleep, and placed him in the care of Dr. John Login. At first the two of them went to live in the fortress of Fatehgarh. I imagine they hoped that his followers would come to forget him. Out of sight and out of mind, and all that. In all likelihood, this photograph of yours dates from that period. 1849; 1850, at most. It can’t be any later.”

“Why not?” asked Mr. Bruff.

“Because although Fatehgarh was capable of holding a twelve-year-old boy captive with astonishing ease, it proved unequal to the task of containing his story. While Duleep remained on Indian soil, he would always inspire supporters. So last year they brought him here to England on the pretext of visiting the Great Exhibition. I know this because I saw him there.”

“So the maharajah’s here? Do you know by any chance where he is staying?”

“I may be on a nodding acquaintance with royalty, Mr. Bruff, but I can hardly claim a place in his social circle. Dr. Login, on the other hand, is quite another matter. I happen to know he’s a member of this club. The secretary is bound to have his address on record. If I remember rightly, the chap runs some kind of hospital, somewhere out Richmond way. If anybody can tell you where the maharajah is staying, it is he.”

Mr. Murthwaite smiled and stubbed out his cigarette. He closed the clasp of the daguerreotype and handed it back to my employer.

“Now, Octavius,” he said, as he turned to me, “it’s almost midday. Let us see how that damnable lackey, who refused you entry, likes it when I order us all a good, slap-up dinner.”


Gooseberry continues next Friday, August 8th.
Copyright Michael Gallagher 2014.
You can follow Michael’s musings on the foolhardiness of this project. Just click on this link to his blog: Writing Gooseberry.

So what did you think? Did you find any typos or continuity errors? Please let me know—use the comment box below.

Lunch started off with a carrot soup that tasted very strange indeed. I’m not sure I liked it. Then came the main event, a dish of rice, which Mr. Murthwaite called ‘kedgeree’. He said that, although it was actually a breakfast food, he enjoyed it so much that he happily ate it at any time of day. It took my mouth a little while to get used to all the competing flavors, but, once it did, I found it was really quite more-ish. I didn’t imagine it was something I could taunt George and George with, however. I had a shrewd suspicion they’d turn their noses up at rice.

By the time we got back to the office there was a reply awaiting us from Mr. Blake. He expressed his thanks for Mr. Bruff’s concern, and assured him that he would put measures in place forthwith to increase security at both his own and Mrs. Merridew’s residences.

Mr. Bruff was true to his word, and arranged for Mr. Crabbit to provide me with a sum of money—a per diem, he called it—that I could use at my discretion, to be topped up each day as required. When I asked if I would need to provide receipts, Mr. Bruff assured me that I would not, but I wasn’t convinced that Mr. Crabbit would see things the same way. So when he called me to his office to give me my seven shillings and sixpence—an extremely generous amount on Mr. Bruff’s part—I made sure I put the question to him as well. I half expected to see his finger point to the sign on the wall.

No illegible receipts
No indecipherable receipts
Etc., etc.

Instead he shuddered a little, gritted his jaw, and said, “No receipts will be necessary.” I’m not sure there wasn’t a tear in his eye. “But,” he added quickly, in a tone that sounded like begging, “any receipts that you do provide will be gratefully received.” I almost felt sorry for him.

With the coins rattling happily around in my pocket, I set off homeward, stopping only to purchase three pork pies, a whole black pudding, and three bottles of ginger beer on the way. When I got to my lodgings, I was surprised to find the door locked. First I tried knocking. No response. Then I tried shouting.

“Bertha, it’s Octopus! Open up!”

When that didn’t work, I tried looking under the doormat for the key—for I’d given one to Bertha to lock up with, in the unlikely event that he needed to go out. There it was, damn the man! I still had a great many things that I needed to know, and he was the only person in a position to enlighten me. I picked it up off the floor and let myself in.

The room was exceedingly warm. Judging by the heat that was radiating from the stove, Bertha must have lit it before he left. When I looked, I saw a puzzling amount of firewood stacked neatly in the crate in the corner. There was twice, maybe three times as much as there had been that morning. I placed the victuals I’d bought for our supper on the table and went and stoked the fire, opening and closing the metal door with the handy makeshift tool we always use. I slipped off my jacket and sat down on a chair. I might have fallen asleep but for Julius’s arrival home.

“Octavius!” he shouted, as he ran to hug me. All at once he noticed the feast on the table. “Black pudding! Ginger beer! And are those eel pies?”

“No, pork.”

“Well,” he said philosophically, “you know I like pork pies, too, don’t you?”

“I know, Julius, I know.”

Our reunion was interrupted by a sharp knock at the door. When I answered it, there stood Bertha, looking extremely sheepish.

“I hoped to get back before you did,” he said, bustling past me into the room as Julius’s face fell, “but I got stuck on the wrong side of the road, and had to wait till all those damn cows had gone by. Look, I got us some potatoes,” he added. “We’ll cook ’em and ’ave ’em for supper.”

“Bertha, I already got us some supper.”

Ignoring the spread on the table, Bertha knelt by the stove, grasped the poker, and began to rake through the ashes in an unnecessarily elaborate fashion. He inserted the trivet, and, taking care not to burn himself, placed three large potatoes on top.

“I won’t have you thinking that I don’t contribute nothing,” he mumbled, as he manipulated the stove door’s catch back into place.

“What word will we do tonight?” piped up Julius, who’d been watching all this from his seat.

“I don’t know…what word do you think will be useful?” I asked, grateful for the sudden diversion.

“How about ‘welcome’? As in, ‘I know someone here who isn’t—’”

“Julius!” I barely managed to circumvent him in time. “Can we talk about the word later, please? After we have supper?”

“Potatoes should take an hour,” growled Bertha, as he sat on the floor with his back to the wall, for Julius had piled the two remaining chairs with stacks of scrap paper.

It was one of the most uncomfortable hours I have ever spent. By the end of it, I understood one thing: scared or not, this was not a flip-a-coin situation; Bertha was not staying here.

We ate in silence, with Julius nudging his potato further and further away from him till it was perched on the edge of his plate. Bertha took a bite out of his and suddenly burst into tears.

“How can I go back?” he wailed, the soft potato chunk still swilling round his mouth. “The Client’s bound to peach on me to Johnny ’bout how I done something wrong—though for the life of me I don’t know what it was. And Johnny being Johnny, he won’t hesitate to punish me. Like as not he’ll throttle me to death. Oh, wot am I to do? Wot am I to do?”

Julius had been in the throes of biting into his pork pie when Bertha burst out crying. He now sat frozen in that position, staring at the fully-grown man before him who was sobbing into his shawl.

“Johnny always had a temper—you know wot he was like—but when he took over from Ned, it just got worse and worse. He changed, Octopus. He changed, and not for the better. Set up his headquarters at the Lamb and Flag—started running bare-knuckle fistfights out of there. Now they call it the Bucket of Blood, and with good reason, too. Those fights are to the death; it’s no holds barred with Johnny.” Bertha clapped his hand over his mouth to try and silence the great, heaving sobs that were rising up out of his chest.

“Bertha, what happened to Ned?”

“Oh, Octopus, the Yard nabbed Ned a good five years back. Hauled him up before the magistrate on some trumped-up charge of burglary. Claimed some old geezer got himself hurt while the job was going down, so everyone thought he’d swing for it. He didn’t, but they transported ’im off to Tasmania. Ned, though, he never done it. You know wot he felt about violence. There are some as say Johnny was behind it all—not to his face, o’ course. Say it to his eek and he’d cut you up in bleedin’ ribbons.”

Bertha was still sobbing sporadically throughout this and Julius was still gawking at him. I wondered how much of this my brother understood. Very little, I hoped, though even very little was more than I was comfortable with.

“Bertha, what can you tell me about the Client?”

“’E’s just some bloke wot Johnny knows. A regular at the fights, I think. Came to Johnny not long before Christmas, offering to pay him a king’s ransom to get his bleedin’ duggairiotype back.”

“What was he doing in the tunnel?”

“The tunnel’s where he works.”

“Works?” My thoughts immediately turned towards the waiter.

“Not works like you and me works.” Bertha brushed the tears from his eyes with the heel of his palm. “The Client’s a toff, see. Sits at one of the tables, right? Sits there all day, treating it like it’s ’is office. ’E wanted somewhere to base himself, like, till we got our ’ands on the picture, so Johnny suggested the tunnel. Just because ’e runs all the scams there, I reckon ’e’s come to think the tunnel’s ’is.”

“But the waiter must be working for Johnny?” He had to be. There was no way on God’s earth that he didn’t know what his storeroom had just been used for.

“Lots of ’em as work there do. They all know wot side their bread’s buttered. Gawd, I wish I’d never gone and given ’im ’is message. And by now he’ll have told Johnny all about me, and, Johnny being Johnny, who knows wot the hell he’ll do!”

No matter how much Johnny might be Johnny—no matter how sorry I might feel for Bertha—I couldn’t allow him to stay here, not at the expense of my brother’s peace of mind.

“Bertha,” I said, as gently as I could, “I understand you’ll need to lay low for a while, but after tonight I’m afraid you’ll have to—”

I felt a sudden burst of pain as a foot delivered a swift, nimble kick to my shin under the table. Julius was staring at me with big, bulging eyes—well, eyes that were bulging more than normal, that is. When he saw that he had my attention, he gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

“Octavius,” he said, keeping his voice carefully modulated, “can I have a word with you…outside, please?”

He rose and I followed. On the landing he pulled the door closed, and, as there was no moon that night, we were left standing in the dark.

“Octavius, he’s really scared.”

“I know, Julius.”

“He’s scared for his life.”

I nodded.

“This man, Johnny, is he really as bad as he says he is?”

I didn’t want to scare him, but I thought he deserved the truth. “Yes.”

“Will he hurt him?”

“Probably.”

“Then we have to let him stay.”

I smiled, not that he could see it.

“Octavius?”

“Yes, Julius?”

“How do you know Johnny?”

I sighed. I had been dreading this question. For Julius’s sake, I’d always kept my work and my private life separate. Even now that I was respectable, I still did. Mr. Bruff had no idea I had a brother.

“Julius, do you remember our mother? Do you remember when she died?”

“I’m not sure. Sometimes I think I do.”

“You were very young at the time, so I had to look after us. I had to make sure that we had food and clothes, and somewhere to sleep for the night. Sometimes that meant I had to do things, things that I wasn’t very proud of.”

“Bad things?”

Good question. “Yes, bad things,” I said, and gave him a minute to let this sink in. “Johnny also did bad things. At the start we used to work together.”

“Like you and Mr. Bruff?”

“No.” More like George and George, I thought to myself. “Mr. Bruff’s a good man.”

“Would you have done bad things if our mother hadn’t died?”

“Oh, Julius. I don’t know. I certainly hope not.”

“Octavius?”

“Yes, Julius?”

“Why does Bertha call you Octopus?”

“It’s the nickname I had when I first met him.”

“Who gave you the nickname?”

“A man named Ned.” He’d given it to me when he made me his second-in-command, but I didn’t think my brother needed to know that.

“Did Ned do bad things too?”

“Yes.”

“As bad as Johnny?”

“No. The things Johnny did were far worse.”

“Then we have to help Bertha.” Despite the dark I could sense he was smiling.

“We do, don’t we? Which one of us is going to give him the good news?”

“I know it should be you, because he’s your friend, but I would like to do it.”

We spent the remainder of the evening in far better spirits than in which we’d started. When Julius settled down to practice his word for the night—‘welcome’—he loaned Bertha his old pencil so that Bertha could practice too. Bertha was at a disadvantage, for he didn’t know his alphabet, but Julius took him in hand and taught him how to pronounce each of the letters. Soon it was time for bed. While Julius got himself ready, I took Bertha outside.

“You’re welcome to stay here,” I told him, “but know this. The less Julius knows about my past, the better. Do you understand?”

He nodded.

“And another thing. The less my past knows about Julius, the better that is, too. When all this is over—when it’s safe for you to go back to your old life—Julius will remain our little secret. You’re to tell nobody about him. All right?”

“Thieves’ honour.”

That didn’t inspire my confidence. As I knew only too well, there was no honor amongst thieves.

“Bertha, you would be wise never to cross me where Julius is concerned.” I don’t know if it was the tone of my voice that impressed him, but when Bertha responded, he sounded petrified.

“’Course. O’ course, Octopus. Our secret. I understand.”

The next morning Mr. Bruff received another summons from the Blakes. As our cab rattled its way down Oxford Street, I considered the tricky question of how much I should tell my employer. In the event, I decided against telling him anything, at least until I got a chance to question Miss Penelope myself. It was almost certain that she’d hidden the daguerreotype in Mrs. Merridew’s handbag. But if she had a good, honest reason for putting it there, why remain silent about it? Why not tell the Blakes what she had done? And how had she come to be in possession of a portrait of Duleep Singh in the first place? Had she stolen it from that shadowy figure who called himself the Client? That particular gentleman, I reflected, was definitely worthy of closer investigation, for it wasn’t the police he had turned to when it came to recovering the picture; it was the violent, bloodthirsty leader of a London-wide criminal gang. No, the Client was almost certainly more sinner than sinned against; that much was clear. But how had a lady’s maid like Miss Penelope got herself mixed up with such a man?

As the cab pulled into Montagu Square, I wondered if I was about to find out.


Gooseberry continues next Friday, August 15th.
Copyright Michael Gallagher 2014.
You can follow Michael’s musings on the foolhardiness of this project. Just click on this link to his blog: Writing Gooseberry.

So what did you think? Did you find any typos or continuity errors? Please let me know—use the comment box below.

The Blakes’ library looked much the same as it had done the previous Monday. Mrs. Blake’s aunt, Mrs. Merridew, was seated in the middle of the room with an embroidery hoop in her hand. Mr. Blake was no longer pacing; instead he was seated at the table with his wife. The fire was lit, and in front of it Mr. Betteredge, the Blake’s elderly retainer, lay dozing. His daughter, Miss Penelope, stood gazing out the window at the street outside. Although she no longer looked like she’d been in a cat fight, the late morning light showed the tension in her face.

Mr. Blake rose and shook my employer’s hand. “But where’s the swiftest, slipperiest pickpocket in all of London?” he inquired. “Is Gooseberry not joining us today?”

It occurred to me that either Mr. Blake suffered from the most rotten eyesight or he’d been trained from birth not to notice his lessers.

“I’m here, sir,” I said, as I stepped forward grasping my hat behind my back—for once again it was Samuel who had answered the door to us, and once again he’d left me holding it. After Mr. Blake made his usual fuss of me, I surreptitiously placed it on the seat of one of winged armchairs, where it was effectively hidden from view. There’d be no reproachful looks from Miss Penelope today.

“You’re the goods, Mr. Bruff! The very goods, sir,” waxed Mr. Blake lyrically. “I don’t know how you foresaw this latest attack, but I’m very glad you did.”

“It was Gooseberry who warned me it could happen. What did happen, by the way? Your message only indicated that there had been another incident.”

“There was an attempt on my wife’s aunt’s house during the night. Thanks to you and Gooseberry, Mrs. Merridew’s steward was prepared for them. He managed to fire off three shots, which sent the beggars running.”

Mr. Bruff turned to the old lady with a look of concern on his face. “Mrs. Merridew…how terribly distressing for you.”

“Not at all,” she replied. “I wasn’t even there. My niece, who is fully aware of my dislike of explosions going off in the night—pistol fire included—thought it best I come and stay with her. That way, in the event of an explosion, she would be on hand to comfort me.” She smiled at Mrs. Blake, who rose from the table and went to pat her aunt’s hand. “What I don’t understand,” she continued, “is what they were hoping to achieve.”

“I assume they were looking for the daguerreotype,” replied Mr. Bruff.

“But that makes no sense whatsoever,” Mrs. Blake pointed out. “Why would these bullies go to the trouble of planting the daguerreotype on poor Aunt Merridew, only to attempt to steal it back a few days later?”

I saw Miss Penelope’s jaw begin to clench.

“It might make sense if what we were dealing with here was not one gang but two,” Mr. Bruff suggested. “Two rival crews competing over the same photograph—one desperate to conceal it, the other to retrieve it.”

Everybody eyed him doubtfully. Only Miss Penelope, who had balled her hand into a fist, remained unmoved. As I watched, the knuckles began to turn white.

“Well, it’s just a theory,” he sighed.

And a rather poor one, as theories go, for although there were hundreds of gangs in London, none of them were rivals. Instead they were structured along army lines, with all of them reporting to Johnny. If anyone tried to set out on his or her own, Johnny would quickly put a stop to it. Even Ned, despite his marked distaste for violence, was not beyond forcibly insisting that everyone kept ranks.

“I do, however,” my employer continued, “bring news of the photograph itself. I have made some inquiries and have managed to identify the two subjects. The man is a Dr. John Login, who I am told acts the boy’s guardian. The boy himself is Duleep Singh, the Maharajah of Lahore.”

As Mr. Bruff paused for emphasis, I glanced about at people’s faces. Everyone’s mouths had dropped, including Miss Penelope’s. Whatever her part in this, this was clearly news to her.

“The boy? A maharajah?” Mr. Blake spluttered incoherently.

“Yes, although he was deposed by the British after the Second Anglo-Sikh War. I have reason to believe that he now resides in England, in the care of his guardian, who runs a hospital of sorts, out Twickenham way. I’ve written asking for an interview, and I await his reply. In the meantime, I think it might be safest if the daguerreotype remains with me.”

As there seemed to be little more to add, we started to take our leave. Having summoned Samuel to fetch Mr. Bruff’s hat and coat, Mr. Blake turned to his wife and said, “I am sorry to abandon you, Rachel dearest, but I have important speeches to write. I’ll be tucked away in my study until dinnertime.”

“Then Aunt Merridew and I will take a turn around the square,” Mrs. Blake replied.

“Are you sure that’s wise? What if there’s another attack?”

“Samuel can come with us. He’s a fair shot with a pistol. You can handle a pistol, can’t you, Samuel?” she added, as the footman returned with Mr. Bruff’s things.

“Yes, miss.”

Mr. Blake led us out into the hall; his wife and her aunt followed. I glanced back into the library, where I’d purposely left my hat sitting on the chair.

“Mr. Bruff, Gooseberry, I wish you both a good day.” Mr. Blake saluted as the door closed behind us.

We hadn’t long to wait before we spied a passing cab. Mr. Bruff hailed it at once. As soon as it had drawn to a halt, he called out our destination to the driver and climbed in.

I hung back.

“Sir,” I said, as he held the door open for me, “I seem to have forgotten my hat. I think I left it in the the library. Please don’t wait for me—I’ll retrieve it and make my own way back.”

He nodded his assent and pulled the door closed, then gave the cabbie the signal to drive on.

I went and stood a little distance from the house, waiting to see in which direction Mrs. Blake’s party would head. Thankfully they headed away from me when they finally emerged. I sprinted back to the house and rang the bell. As I had hoped, it was Miss Penelope who answered the door.

“Gooseberry?” she said, gazing down at me. “Is anything the matter?”

“I think I left my hat in the library, miss.”

“Wait here and I’ll get it for you.” She went to shut the door in my face. I quickly put my hand out to stop it from closing on me.

“Miss Penelope, the truth is I left my hat here in order to get a word with you in private.”

“Indeed? With me? And why would that be?”

“Let me in, miss, and I’ll explain.”

I would like to say her pale blue eyes were full of apprehension as she opened the door to me. In reality, they were only mildly curious.

I had imagined our interview would take place in the library, for that’s the room we were always shown to. Instead she simply stood her ground, forcing me to face her in the hall. Of all the rooms in the house, this was her domain. It was she and Samuel who ruled the roost here, deciding who would be granted entry and who would not.

“Now that you have my attention, young man, I think you had better begin.”

“First a question, miss. Between you, how do you and Samuel divide up the task of answering the door?”

“It normally falls to Samuel. But he’ll warn me if he’s going out, or if he’s about to take his break, and then it falls to me. Why do you ask?”

Ignoring her question, I plowed on. “And when you were plagued with nuisance callers, miss, what was the routine then?”

Her mouth tightened. “It was decided that only Samuel should answer the door.”

Another piece of the puzzle fell into place.

“Miss Penelope, I know the truth.”

“The truth?”

“I managed to locate the flower girl, miss, the one who was there when you were attacked. She admits to being hired, though not to plant the daguerreotype. She was there to steal it…from you. It was you who put the daguerreotype in Mrs. Merridew’s bag.”

Miss Penelope stared. “And why would I do such a thing?” she asked.

“It’s my belief that you were trying to protect it, miss. You see, this is what I think happened. When you no longer answered the door to them, the gang was forced to take stronger measures. They broke a window in the servant’s quarters to gain entry to the house. Either by a stroke of luck, or, as I suspect, because you had already started carrying the photograph about with you on your person, they didn’t find what they were after—hence their last ditch attempt to steal it from you in the street. You knew you were their target, and you knew that they would find it, so you took the one course of action left to you: you slipped it in the old lady’s bag, where you hoped they wouldn’t look.”

“I must say, you have a very vivid imagination.”

“You’re right, miss, I do. For example, I imagine you expected to retrieve the daguerreotype once you were safely back home. But you’d been hurt, and Mrs. Blake insisted that Cook tend your wounds, so you never got the opportunity. Now, I don’t imagine for one instant that you are a bad person, miss, so what I’d like to know is why you didn’t then make a clean breast of things to the Blakes?”

As I gazed up intently into Miss Penelope’s face, I saw the last thing I expected to see. A trace of a smile. She was glad to be rid of the photograph. She’d kept it safe from those who had plotted to take it from her, and now she’d delivered it into someone else’s protection.

Miss Penelope gave me a shrewd look and asked, “Gooseberry, what do you want?”

“You’ve always been kind to me, miss. So I wanted to give you the chance to tell me your side of the story before I go to Mr. Bruff.”

“Then we’re done here.” She made a move towards the door.

“Please, Miss Penelope, I beg you. Tell me how you came by the portrait. When Mr. Bruff revealed whose portrait it was, you were as astonished as everyone else was. That makes me think that though you needed to keep it safe, you had no idea of its significance.”

“Gooseberry, it’s time for you to leave.”

“Who is the Client, miss? And why does he want it so badly? Please! You must answer my questions if you want me to help you!”

“I don’t know! I don’t know!” she cried, losing her temper at last. “Now, go! Leave this place!”

Just then the door to the library opened and her father, Mr. Betteredge, stepped into the hall. He was carrying my hat.

“What is going on here?” he asked, studying both our faces in turn. “Why all the shouting?”

Miss Penelope took one look at her father and burst into tears. Beating a retreat, she fled up the stairs to one of the floors above. Mr. Betteredge came forward and held out my hat.

“Yours, I believe,” he said, as he handed it over. “Young man, while it is true that I have never entirely understood my daughter, in my heart I know her to be a good and honest girl. I will not stand idly by to see her upset by the likes of you.” He nodded thoughtfully and then hobbled to the front door. He pulled it open and stood waiting for me to take my leave.

Although I’d told Mr. Bruff I would return to the office, I now had a change of plan. When one door closes, it forces you to knock on the other. Since Miss Penelope refused to tell me what she knew, I had no other choice but to hunt down the Client myself. So, with my seven and sixpence jangling in my pocket, I headed south towards the pier at Hungerford Bridge.

Steamboats for Greenwich departed from here twice hourly, making a number of stops along the way. On inquiring when the next one was due, I discovered that I had twenty minutes to spare, so I went and bought a spot of dinner—a bun with a great slab of cheese in the middle, and bottle of ginger beer to wash it down. I took it back with me to the pier, then settled down to wait. Before very long I was boarding the boat with the other passengers. I found a seat with a decent view of the river and, as the boat pulled noisily away on its slow journey eastward, I tucked into my bun.

It’s not often I get to travel by boat, so it felt like an adventure. I soon found myself regretting not having brought my winter coat along, however. The freezing, damp air whipped frenziedly around me, chilling me to the bone. I began to stroll about the deck, searching for somewhere to take shelter. Failing to find anywhere at all, I was forced to go and sit down again.

“Tunnel Pier!” came the captain’s cry at last, when my earlobes had lost all feeling. “Disembark here for the Thames Tunnel!”

It seemed that most of my fellow travelers were bound for the same destination. I joined the queue at the gangplank, and simply followed the herd through the streets. Soon the pale gray marble tower came into view and people started forming a line.

Having paid my penny, I descended the stairs and made directly for the coffee shop. Business was even brisker than it had been on Tuesday, and people were obliged to share tables if they wanted a seat. That made my task infinitely harder. I had counted on identifying the Client by looking for a gent sitting alone at a table. But nobody was seated alone today.

I stepped back into the shadows and kept my eye on the waiter. After ten minutes, I began to see a kind of pattern to his movements. As tables emptied and tables filled, he would take people’s orders as he cleared dirty crockery, and would presently return with their chosen cakes and drinks. After thirty minutes, he’d worked his way around the entire floor, serving every single person…bar one.

The gentleman in question was a man in his late twenties, pale of complexion, with dark hair and a beard. He was seated at a table with a group of three women, all of whom he patently ignored. He passed the time by reading his newspaper and making notes in a small pocket diary. The cake and the glass in front of him remained untouched. I had my target, and now I just had to wait.

“The Tunnel is closing in fifteen minutes. Please make your way to the exits!”

Now timing became everything. As he rose, I passed by his table, and for the merest instant my arm brushed his. He looked up, but by then I’d already gone, dodging into the crowd before circling back to follow him. Up the stairs he went and out through the exit, with me in hot pursuit. He turned right and stalked up to the main road, then headed west past the docks and the Tower. He was going at a rollicking pace, forcing me to put on a burst of speed every now and then to try and keep up. At Aldgate he turned left, and took the turning into Leadenhall Street. Throngs of people crowded the pavement, homeward bound after a long day’s work. One second I’d lose sight of him, only to glimpse him again the next.

Then I lost him for good.

I looked around and took my bearings. Leadenhall Street was the heart of London’s financial district, where commodities from all over the world were traded, and deals that could make or wreck entire countries were struck. All its grand buildings smelled of money and profit, and it was into one of these that the Client had escaped.

Retracing my steps, I hailed a cab. The cabbie looked skeptical till I showed him the color of my coins. I climbed into the carriage, then sat down and took out the Client’s diary—well, you knew I’d lifted something, and you surely can’t imagine it was the newspaper! I opened it to the front page.

‘Property of Mr. Josiah Hook, Esquire,’ it said. So now the Client had a name. ‘If found, please return to Room 219.’

As I prepared to take my first ever ride in a cab on my own, I turned the page.


Gooseberry continues next Friday, August 22nd.
Copyright Michael Gallagher 2014.
You can follow Michael’s musings on the foolhardiness of this project. Just click on this link to his blog: Writing Gooseberry.
Photograph: Workers on the Silent Highway by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

So what did you think? Did you find any typos or continuity errors? Please let me know—use the comment box below.

Mr. Hook—esquire—’s diary was only helpful to a point. As he had started it on New Year’s Day, there were only twenty-two entries in total. Each of these was made in small, cramped writing, and most featured items of news copied from newspapers, such as ‘Royal Mail’s Amazon burns and sinks in the Bay of Biscay’ or ‘Transvaal receives its independence’—various goings-on from around the world, with all the place names underlined twice.

Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday was marked with the letters ‘BOB’, followed by a set of figures that obviously referred to an amount of money. Some days the amount recorded was positive, some days negative. This stumped me at first—in fact to begin with I assumed ‘BOB’ was a name—but then I realized all the labeled days were Covent Garden market days, when the Bucket of Blood held its bare-knuckle fights. Mr. Hook, it seemed, liked a bet. Presumably this was how he’d met Johnny in the first place.

The parts that will be of greater interest to you (and the parts that were of greater interest to me) were even harder to make sense of, for all were written in abbreviated script, like this snippet from January 1st:

‘Our recs. show Thos. Shep. Broth. in service Port. Pl. res., name of Jas. Have J. F. M. set watch on ho. in case Thos. left port. w/ Jas.’

By working backwards from incidents I could identify, I was eventually able to expand it to this:

‘Our records show that Thomas Shep[herd?] has a brother in service at a Portland Place residence—Mrs. Merridew’s residence, on the face of it—who goes by the name of James. Have Johnny Full Moon set a watch on the house in case Thomas left the portrait with James.’

As far as I could tell, this whole affair had started with Thomas, an unknown entity, who’d given the daguerreotype to his brother, James, for safekeeping. I’d bet two pairs of boots that this James was the footman who, claiming the need to tend to his sick brother, gave Mrs. Merridew his notice.

Had Thomas stolen the portrait from Hook? Though this was unclear, there was one thing I was certain of. He’d gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure Mr. Hook did not get it back. The daguerreotype was obviously the key to this business.

But how had Miss Penelope come by it? Two identical entries on Sundays 4th and 11th provided a tantalizing hint:

‘Jas. S. meets girl Rgnt’s zool. gards. monk. ho. 2.30 pm.’

Translation:

On both dates, James Shep[herd?] met a girl—Miss Penelope, given the nature of later entries—in or by the monkey house at Regent’s Park zoological gardens at 2.30 pm.
She’d been seeing James on her afternoons off, and quite regularly it seemed. When Johnny’s lot was sent to deal with him, James gave her the portrait to look after before quitting Mrs. Merridew’s service.
There was one entry that especially worried me—the penultimate one, as Mr. Bruff would have me call it:

‘Freak escpd. Tell J. F. M.: need to be dealt w/ termin. Entry into Port. Pl. res. set for tonight.’

There wasn’t a chance in a million that the escaping freak could be anybody but Bertha. But why, exactly, was it necessary that he be dealt with terminally?

What was it Bertha had said? “I give him his message—and everything’s sweet—then all of a sudden he turns round and whacks me in the face!” What had caused this sudden fit of rage? What had Bertha seen or done to make Mr. Hook want him dead?

I was in two minds whether to tell Bertha about this. In the end I thought it best he be warned, so I broached the subject with him as soon as Julius left for work.

“Looks like I’ll need a disguise, then,” was his only response.

When I got to the office that morning, I barely had a chance to top up my per diem before Mr. Bruff was calling for me. Within minutes we were outside, climbing into a cab.

“This came this morning,” he said, handing me a letter as the cab rumbled south towards the Strand:

Cole Park Grange Asylum,
Twickenham.
January, 22nd inst.

Sir,

With reference to your recent inquiry, I regret to inform you that Dr. Login is currently abroad, and cannot be contacted for the foreseeable future. However, if you would care to visit, I am happy to place myself at your disposal if you think I can be of help to you in any regard.

Yours humble servant,
Mr. Cyrus Treech,
Director in Dr. Login’s absence.

“Sir, what do you hope to achieve by seeing the doctor’s second-in-command?” We were crossing Waterloo Bridge at this point, and the cab had just pulled up at the toll gate.
“Perhaps he will be able to throw some light on this,” he replied, pulling the daguerreotype from his pocket.

My heart sank. I knew that possessing the portrait was dangerous, and the fewer who knew that he had it, the better. But how was I going to warn him of this without telling him what I’d found out?

“Mr. Bruff,” I began, “after we parted yesterday, instead of returning to the office I went to follow up a lead I’d been given. It turns out you were right: there are two rival gangs at work here.”

“I knew it!” he cried, elated to find out he’d been right.

Well, it was true after a fashion. I slowly went through the whole story for him, substituting the word ‘gang’ for any involvement by Miss Penelope, the footman James, or Thomas, James’s shadowy brother. Mr. Bruff listened attentively as we boarded our train at Waterloo. He was still listening attentively as we sped our way westward towards Twickenham.

On arrival, we were told that Cole Park Grange Asylum lay within walking distance from the station. The air was as crisp as an autumn apple as we crunched our way along the gravel path. Soon we came to a pair of wrought-iron gates set into a high brick wall. Inside the gates there stood a tiny hut, where a guard was stationed on duty. Mr. Bruff stated our business and the man let us in.

Cole Park Grange Asylum was a sprawling two-storied building set in several acres of grounds. Some attempt had been made at landscaping, though there was nothing as formal as an actual garden. Rather, the sweeping lawn had been broken up in places with the occasional tree or a few lonely shrubs. To my mind, it made the estate look windswept. On the journey up to the house, I counted five of the doctor’s patients standing about on the lawn, looking for all the world like they too were part of the design.

On entering, we were shown to the doctor’s study, and told that Mr. Treech would join us presently. Before very long, the door opened and a gentleman in his late forties entered the room. His face was clean-shaven, his hair was brushed back, and his eyes gleamed warmly behind a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles. His skin was deeply tanned—not quite as dark as Mr. Murthwaite’s, but he’d certainly seen the sun quite recently—and he was dressed rather finely in a well-cut jacket. He came forward and gave Mr. Bruff’s hand a hearty shake.

“Welcome, sir, to Cole Park Grange.” He seated himself behind the large mahogany desk. “I am Mr. Treech, Dr. Login’s assistant. Perhaps you have come to see the good works we do here? As you’re no doubt aware, Dr. Login is a specialist in ailments of the mind—delusions, sir, feeble-mindedness, and despair.”

“Mr. Treech, my name is Bruff.”

“Ah, Mr. Bruff! Of course! You wrote requesting an audience with the good doctor. Unfortunately he’s away traveling—somewhere up near the Prussian border, I believe. But perhaps I can be of assistance?”

“The matter we are here on is a delicate one, I fear.”

“Indeed?” A look of inquisitive bemusement appeared on Mr. Treech’s face. He tilted his head to one side.

“I have been led to believe that Dr. Login acts as guardian to the Maharajah of Lahore.”

Mr. Treech smiled. “Yes, that is quite correct.”

“I wished to inquire about a certain daguerreotype that was made—a portrait of Dr. Login with the maharajah at his side. It recently came into the possession of a client of mine in a highly unsatisfactory manner.”

“Unsatisfactory?”

“Highly unsatisfactory,” repeated Mr. Bruff, refusing to go into detail.

“Do you have the portrait with you?”

I glanced at my employer, wondering if I’d managed to persuade him of the threat the daguerreotype posed.

“No,” he said, after a moment’s pause, “I have deposited it with my bank for safekeeping.”

Mr. Treech shrugged. “Then I’m afraid I cannot help you.” As Mr. Bruff and I rose from our chairs, he suddenly raised his hand. “But perhaps there is someone who can.”

“Who?”

“Why, His Highness himself, sir. The Maharajah of Lahore.”

“The maharajah is here?”

“Not in the house, no; this building is reserved for patients. The maharajah resides in the doctor’s private quarters, which are located elsewhere on the grounds. I can take you to him, though I can’t guarantee he will see you. His Highness is a very private person.”

“We would be indebted, sir.”

Mr. Treech led us down a passage and out through a door into the stable yard at the back.

“Before its conversion into a hospital,” he said, pointing to the delivery of vegetables we could see being made at the kitchen door, “this house used to have its own tenant farmers. Although no longer tied to us directly, they still keep us supplied with fresh produce. Dr. Login believes that the first requirement of a healthy mind is a healthy body. We serve only the best, nutritious food here.”

We rounded the stable and followed a rutted dirt track, which brought us to another set of gates. Beside it stood an old gatehouse, with small leaded windows, roses round the door, and a low trellis fence at the front.

“Dr. Login had the interior refitted before he moved in. It is truly most charming inside. If you will please follow me?”

He opened the gate, walked up to the door, and knocked. After a brief interval, a man who was somewhat younger than Mr. Treech appeared. When he saw Mr. Treech standing there, he held the door open and ushered us in.

“How is His Highness today?” Mr. Treech inquired, as we all removed our hats.

“Fair to middling, sir,” the young man replied, taking Mr. Treech’s and Mr. Bruff’s, but leaving me with mine. Oh, the joys of being socially inferior. “At the moment he’s practicing his letters.”

“Will he receive us, do you think?”

“I couldn’t rightly say, sir.”

“Well, we can but try.”

We followed Mr. Treech up the stairs, to a doorway halfway along the short corridor at the top. He tapped gently and waited. Upon receiving no reply, he gently pushed the door open. I edged my way in between him and Mr. Bruff, so I might see what they could see.

At the far end of the room, a brown-skinned boy my own age was seated at a table. Light from the window fell sideways across his face, casting one side of it into shadow. He had been in the process of writing something, for a dip-pen was poised in his right hand. He regarded the three of us thoughtfully, before at last settling on Mr. Treech.

“Why do you disturb me?” he asked, his warm, sultry voice almost singing out the words.

“Your Highness, this gentleman is Mr. Bruff. He wishes to beg an audience.”

The boy studied my employer for a moment. Then he smiled. “No, I will speak with him,” he said.

He was pointing at me.

I thought Mr. Bruff might have an apoplexy, but instead he put his hands on my shoulder and propelled me into the room.

“Your Highness,” Mr. Treech protested, “this is highly irregular!”

“I have made my decision,” the boy replied. “If you worry for my safety, you may, of course, leave the door open…as I am sure you will.”

He placed his pen on the table and rose, then came forward to greet me. “Welcome,” he said, putting his hand out to me. “What is your name?”

“Octavius,” I said, tucking my hat under my left arm, then grasping his hand and shaking it, “though most people call me Gooseberry.”

“Gooseberry? What an odd name. And yet it suits you. And where do you live, Gooseberry?”

“In London, sir. Just off the Caledonian Road—near where they’re building the new railway terminus.”

“A railway terminus? How very fascinating and modern. Come. Come see what I am doing.”

He led me to the table and offered me a chair. Resuming his seat, he turned the sheet of paper around so I could see it. Written repeatedly in flowing script was the phrase: ‘Duleep Singh, Maharajah of Lahore, former leader of the great Sikh Empire.’

“I am learning to write your English,” he explained.

“You write it very well, sir,” I said, and he smiled. I wanted to tell him that I was teaching my brother to write, but that would have involved talking about Julius in Mr. Bruff’s hearing. I settled instead for partial lie. “I teach my neighbor’s boy,” I said. “Each night I give him a different word, and he sits and practices it.”

“Oh? And how is that going?”

“Honestly? Very, very slowly, though he tries his best.” I could feel Mr. Bruff’s eyes on me, willing me to move on to the subject of our visit. “Your Highness, we have come to ask you about a portrait you had made, a daguerreotype that has recently come into our possession—”

“No! We will talk about writing English! Give me a word!”

“What?”

“Each night you give your neighbor’s boy a word. Give me a word and I shall write it.”

I scratched my head. “What word do you think will be useful?”

“‘Sovereignty’,” he said at last, “since I no longer have sovereignty over my own people.”

He offered me a fresh sheet of paper. I dipped his pen in the inkwell and began to write the word out. As I slid it back across the table, I wondered what Julius would make of this term, with its tricky vowels that could all too easily be transposed, and its ‘ign’ just begging to be written as ‘ing’.

I studied the lad’s face as he wrote. He was as handsome in real life as he was in the photograph, his flawless skin only marred by the short, angry-looking scar that ran from the far corner of his right eye down to the top of his cheek.

“There,” he said, dashing off the ‘y’ with a flourish, “how is that?”

I rose from my seat and went and peered over his shoulder.

“You’ve transposed the ‘i’ and ‘e’,” I said, and he looked up with a frown. “This letter here, and this one here…they should be the other way round.”

As I lowered my head to point to them, he unexpectedly whispered something in my ear:

“When you go, leave your hat behind. Trust me. I promise to return it.”

His eyes met mine, and for the briefest instant they burned intensely. Aloud he said, “This is a most difficult word. I will need to practice it. Sit.”

Aware that I was still being watched from the doorway, I casually propped my hat upon a chair, the back of which I judged would hide it neatly from view. That accomplished, I went and sat down again. For five minutes the boy worked in silence. Then he placed his pen on the table in front of him, and smiled at me.

“I have enjoyed your company, Gooseberry, and I thank you for teaching me a new word. But now I should like to rest.”

I rose and gave a little bow, then turned and walked towards the door. Just as I reached it, however, Mr. Treech cleared his throat.

“You’ve forgotten your hat,” he said.

“So I have,” I agreed unhappily, and went to retrieve it. As I picked it up, I noticed the boy. His features had frozen on his face. Then he rallied a little. He stood up and walked towards me.

“It was a pleasure to meet you,” he said, and reached out to shake my hand again. I could feel the tension in his body—his shoulders were perfectly rigid. And then he suddenly relaxed. As I turned to go, I even thought I saw a smile.

The man who had opened the door to us was waiting to show us out. He fetched the two hats he had taken and handed them back to their respective owners. We were just on the verge of leaving when the young maharajah came bolting down the stairs.

“Gooseberry,” he said breathlessly, “I believe that you dropped this.”

In the palm of his hand was my handkerchief, embroidered the letters ‘O. G.’. I got an overwhelming feeling that Mr. Treech would have snatched it from him then and there, had such an action not seemed wildly inappropriate.

“Isn’t that the one I gave you for Christmas?” asked Mr. Bruff, who was also peering at it with interest. He seemed pleased to see that I was actually using it, and hadn’t yet consigned it to the rag and bone.

“It is, sir,” I replied, as the boy pressed it into my hand. The question was, how on God’s good earth had he come by it? I’d certainly had no cause to take it out during the time I spent in his room. Which only left one possibility, as implausible as it might sound. The Maharajah of Lahore was a pickpocket. A pickpocket just like me.

I also had a good idea why he’d returned it, for through its folds I could feel the unmistakeable texture of paper. The thieving maharajah had used it to smuggle me a note.


Gooseberry continues next Friday, August 29th.
Copyright Michael Gallagher 2014.
You can follow Michael’s musings on the foolhardiness of this project. Just click on this link to his blog: Writing Gooseberry.
Photograph: Public Disinfectors by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

So what did you think? Did you find any typos or continuity errors? Please let me know—use the comment box below.

“Gooseberry, could you not have pressed the subject of the daguerreotype further?”

Mr. Bruff and I were walking back towards the station. The Maharajah’s note, if indeed that’s what it was, was still concealed within my handkerchief, safely inside my pocket. Though I was burning with curiosity, I wanted to be alone when I examined it. Until I knew its contents, I wouldn’t be able to judge whether this was something I wished to share with my employer—or, at least, share just yet.

“Mr. Bruff—”

“No, no, you’re right. I’m being unfair. The maharajah clearly forbade you to talk about the photograph. I see that. And I can’t think of anything I could have done in your position that might have changed his mind. Come. I think we both deserve a good dinner after all that. Let us see if we can find ourselves a place that serves a decent meal.”

After inquiring at the station, we set off towards the river in search of the establishment that had been recommended to us.

The Jolly Boatman was a public house that commanded a fine view of the Thames, but apart from the occasional passenger-carrying wherry, there was very little river traffic to be seen. When I asked why, Mr. Bruff explained that, this far inland, the Thames was no longer tidal, which prevented larger vessels—those that could only sail on high tide—from navigating it.

Being the dinner hour, the place was busy, but we still managed to secure a table near the fire. Mr. Bruff ordered the pea and ham soup for us both, with cheeses and chutney to follow. He had a glass of white wine, while I opted for a bottle of ginger beer. As soon as the publican had taken our order, I casually rose from the table.

“Call of nature,” I explained in response to Mr. Bruff’s unspoken query. Quickly catching the publican up, I asked directions to the W. C. I made my way outside, as I’d been told to do, and followed the cinder track that brought me to a fenced-in yard at the rear of the building. Along the far wall stood a short row of water closets.

I entered the nearest and bolted the door. Though I really was anxious to use the facilities, my call of nature could wait, whereas my curiosity could not. I pulled out my handkerchief and extracted the scrap of paper. It was a message, all right. In a hastily written, almost scrawled, cursive hand, this is what it said:

“Do not let Treech get his hands on the photograph. He will destroy it, and the Maharajah will be put to death.”

I read it through several times. The first sentence seemed clear enough, even though the word ‘photograph’ was a last minute substitution, after the writer had tried and failed to spell the word ‘daguerreotype’. It was the second sentence that worried me. He will destroy it, and the Maharajah will be put to death. As much as I hated to share information with my employer—at least until I fully understood its significance—this was far too important to keep to myself.

A steaming bowl of soup was awaiting me when I returned to the table. I sat down with every intention of showing Mr. Bruff the maharajah’s message, but then I clocked a man standing in the doorway. I recognized him immediately as one of the guards at Cole Park Grange. He spotted us, and casually took a seat at the nearest table. For the hour or so that followed, I managed to steer the conversation, sidetracking Mr. Bruff whenever I felt he he was about to mention the case. Anyone watching or listening would have thought we were having a great old chat—and in a sense we were, for the meal was good, the company spirited, and the surroundings tolerably fair.

I thanked Mr. Bruff for the dinner as we walked back to the station. I wasn’t surprised to see that the guard was following us; what surprised me was how extremely clumsy he was at it. Can you believe he stood a mere five feet away from us on the almost empty platform? I began to wonder if he had plans to board the train when it arrived, but in the event he didn’t. Having seen us enter a carriage, he simply waited where he was, and only turned to leave when the train pulled away.

“Sir,” I said, now that we were finally alone together, “did you see that fellow who followed us from the Jolly Boatman?”

“What fellow, Gooseberry?” Mr. Bruff may be an extremely astute lawyer, but sometimes his powers of observation fall pitifully low of the mark.

“The one with the pointy ears, sir. He was the guard on the gate at the asylum—the one who let us in. I think Mr. Treech sent him to spy on us.”

“Spy on us? Surely not! What possible reason would Mr. Treech have to do such a thing?”

“I think he wanted to find out if the maharajah slipped me a message.”

“Slipped you a message? That’s absurd.”

“But, Mr. Bruff, he did slip me a message. It was wrapped up in my handkerchief. Here, look…” I pulled the scrap of paper from my pocket and handed it to my employer.

His eyebrows raised considerably as he read it through. “But what can this mean?” he asked.

“Sir, the boy went to a great deal of trouble to get this message to me. I didn’t drop my handkerchief; he stole it from my jacket—and with all the skill and daring of a natural pickpocket, I might add. Now, unless he’s referring to himself in the third person, in the way that our good queen prefers the royal ‘we’, that leaves only one possible explanation, as far as I can see. The maharajah we met is an imposter.”

Faced with this brilliantly constructed piece of logic, I’m sorry to say that my employer remained singularly unconvinced. He opened the daguerreotype and held it up to the light of the carriage window.

“We know that this is a portrait of Duleep Singh, the Maharajah of Lahore. How do we know this? We have Mr. Murthwaite’s testimony to the fact. Two or three years may have passed since this picture was taken, but I’d be willing to bet that this is the same young man that we met today.”

I studied the flawless skin, several shades darker than my own, the perfect white teeth, and the soulful eyes, marred only by the short, livid scar on the right side of his face. I had to admit he was right.

Yet how did this square with the maharajah’s ability as a thief? The boy was good at it, for when he took my handkerchief, I didn’t feel his hand inside my jacket. If only he could learn to control the tension in his body, one day he might even be as good as me. One thing was certain, though: he was no novice pickpocket—he’d done it before. So when exactly had picking pockets been part of His Highness’s lessons?

“How do you explain the handkerchief,” I asked.

“Very simply,” said Mr. Bruff. “It’s just as the boy said. You must have dropped it.”

I knew I hadn’t, but with Mr. Bruff stubbornly refusing to believe me, it seemed futile to press the point. “What about ‘the Maharajah will be put to death’, then? Who writes about himself in the third person?”

“Maharajahs, for all I know. And please don’t tell me you know otherwise, because you’re no more an expert on Sikh culture than am I. No, Gooseberry, these flights of fancy simply will not do.”

“Sir,” I tried one last tack, “at the very least, you must concede that this note suggests the maharajah’s life will be forfeit if Mr. Treech gets hold of the daguerreotype?”

That pulled him up short.

“Yes…yes,” he agreed reluctantly. Then he appeared to cheer up a bit. “It does seem to fit with what we’ve discovered about the rival gangs. I suppose it is possible that Mr. Treech is in league with one of them.”

The wrong one, of course; not Miss Penelope and her sweetheart, who had both tried to keep the portrait from falling into the wrong hands. No, this gang was made up of mad Johnny Knight, Josiah Hook, and now—it would seem—Cyrus Treech. Why did they want the daguerreotype so badly?

“Sir, the portrait is key to this affair. What do you intend to do with it when we get back to London?”

“I think it would be best if I deposited it with my bank.”

“Then may I please examine it one last time?”

“Certainly.” He handed over the case.

I studied the scar carefully, but couldn’t find fault with it. It seemed identical to the one I’d just seen.

“Gooseberry, what in God’s name do you think you’re doing?” screeched Mr. Bruff. “I order you to desist at once!”

All I was doing was prying the photographic metal plate out from under its protective glass. I just wanted to see if there was anything hidden beneath it—some secret papers, perhaps, or even a treasure map. A treasure map would have been perfect. Unfortunately there was nothing of the sort.

“You had better be able to put that back in one piece, young man, or, so help me, I’ll tan your hide till Sunday!”

“Look…look, Mr. Bruff. It simply slots back into place. See? No harm done. Honest.”

“Hmmph!”

Mr. Bruff was true to his word. On our arrival at Waterloo, he hailed a cab and we made directly for his bank in Lombard Street. While I waited for him in the carriage, my thoughts turned again to Mr. Hook, for Leadenhall Street, where I’d last set eyes on him, was just around the corner.

When I reached home that evening, I found Julius and Bertha sitting at the table together, engaged in some kind of lesson.

“Nah, you got to say it quieter, Julius,” Bertha was explaining. “Say it like you got the consumption eating away at yeh and you won’t last to see another day. Cough a little. Wipe those bona, big ogles like you’re brushing away tears. You want to get their sympathy, see? Now try it again.”

“Varder me bona, fat eels, missus,” whispered Julius, coughing right on cue at the end. “Wouldn’t you love to get your ’and round—”

“Rand! Rand! Didn’t no one ever learn you to talk proper?”

Julius blinked and tried again. “Rand one of these whoppers?” he mimicked, undoing years of hard work on my part.

“Better. Now a few tears—that’s it—no, don’t go bleedin’ overboard. Bona! If that don’t get ’em buying up the whole damn barrel, nothing will!”

“What are you two doing?” I asked.

“I was just helping young Julius ’ere work up ’is patter.”

“His patter’s just fine, Bertha.”

“But he tells me they don’t let him serve on the barrow. All he gets to do is gut fish all day. A shame, I call it. Waste of good talent.”

“If you want to help him, then teach him something useful.”

“There ain’t nothing more useful than a good line of patter.”

“I’d say that totting up a bill and making the correct change ought to come a close second, wouldn’t you?”

“Wot? The lad don’t know his money?”

“I do too!” Julius protested. “I know all my coins by sight.”

“I know you do, Julius. But if Bertha’s serious about helping you, he’ll teach you how to add up and give change.” Anything had to be better than ‘Varder me bona, fat eels, missus’. And who could tell, maybe Bertha would succeed where I had failed?

Bertha looked thoughtful. “We could do with some proper money to practice with,” he said.

“Funny you should say that,” I replied, and delved into my pocket for a handful of my per diem.

Saturdays are unusual in that they may or may not be workdays, depending upon your station in life and also on your chosen profession. For Julius, it’s his busiest day, and he’s often not back from his fish stall until it’s well gone midnight. For me, it very much depends on the whims and needs of Mr. Bruff. For Mr. Bruff, it depends on the whims and needs of his clients. While businesses that sell things will probably be open, the more successful and profitable those businesses are, the fewer staff they will have in attendance—for men of wealth tend to flee the capital on weekends, preferring to breathe the superior quality of air that their country homes provide. A perfect day, in other words, to tackle the little project I had in mind.

First I needed to purchase a gift of sorts. I briefly considered buying a rat in a cage, but realized in time that such an odd present would stick out in the memory. No, this had to be something inconsequential, and something that wouldn’t cost me a fortune, for I also had plans for the Sunday.

After much deliberation, I took myself off to a rather select stationer’s in Bishopsgate, and picked out two nicely-bound pocket diaries.

“That will be one and six,” said the woman, when I took them up to the counter.

“Can you wrap them for me, please? In separate packages?” I gave her my best beaming smile.

“Why, certainly,” she replied, and set about parceling them up in brown paper and string as deftly as a butcher wraps meat.

“Do you by chance have a business card?” Of course they did; this was a select stationer’s, and their prices were outrageous.

“We do.”

“May I have two, please?”

“Two?” She frowned.

“I’d like to recommend this shop to my employer, you see.”

“Of course.” She handed me two cards. “Will there be anything else?”

“I’ll take a pencil. And, oh,” I added, with a sudden burst of benevolence towards Mr. Crabbit, “may I please have a receipt?”

Leadenhall Street was only around the corner. Today there was less traffic about, and the pavement was practically empty. I found the spot where I’d last seen Hook, and paused for a moment to study my surroundings. I was searching for the street’s most impressive building, and there was one less than thirty yards down the road that towered heads above the rest. Quite literally. It might easily have been a palace. I wandered along to the entrance, set behind a portico of towering Greek columns, and ran my eyes over the doors. They were standing open.

“Can I help you?” a man’s voice called out.

I climbed the steps and poked my head inside. The person who’d hailed me, a jovial, bearded chap in his late fifties, stepped forward. He was dressed in a sumptuous uniform of red and gold livery.

“I have some parcels to deliver, sir, but as I’m new to the area, I’m not sure that I’ve come to the right place.”

“This is East India House, lad, the premises of the East India Company.”

“Oh, good.” I certainly hoped it was good.

“Who are the parcels for?”

“The first is for a certain Mr. Josiah Hook, esquire, of Room Two-nineteen. Is Mr. Hook here today?”

“Bless you, no, he won’t be back until Monday. It’s generally just us porters on a Saturday.”

“Is Mr. Hook your gaffer, then?” Since the man was only in his twenties, this seemed incredibly unlikely.

“My gaffer? Heavens, no! He’s merely one of Sir Humphrey’s junior clerks.”

“Sir Humphrey?”

“Sir Humphrey Mallard. A director of this esteemed company.” Bingo! Here was the man who pulled the strings. Somebody obviously sanctioned Hook’s informal little office in the Thames Tunnel—which was far better suited to meetings with London’s criminal fraternity than these hallowed halls—and who more likely than his boss?

“A director?” I queried. “Why, how many are there?”

“Twenty-five if you count the board’s chairman.”

I tried to look suitably awestruck. “And what does this esteemed company do?”

“Do? Why, it makes money, lad. Lots and lots of lovely money.” The porter burst out laughing, leaving me none the wiser.

“Sir, the second parcel’s for a certain Mr. Thomas Shepherd, esquire, of Room…of Room…”

“Two-twenty—but Mr. Shepherd hasn’t worked here since Christmas.”

“Oh, dear! What on earth am I to do?” I asked.

“I don’t rightly know what you ought to do with Mr. Shepherd’s package, but you can leave Mr. Hook’s with me. I’ll see that he gets it.”

“I’ll need you to sign for it, sir,” I said, hugging it to my chest as if I were about to protect it with my life.

Again the porter laughed, and readily agreed to sign. I took out my pencil and the two cards, which I kept sandwiched together so they looked like one. On the back of the bottom card I’d already written the words: “One pocket diary to be delivered to Mr. Josiah Hook, Room 219. Received, Saturday, January 24th, 1852.”

On the back of the top one, I now wrote this: “Compliments of the East India Company.”

Palming the card I’d just written, I handed the porter the other. As he read it through and appended his signature, I slipped my one inside the brown paper wrapping. I handed the porter the package and bid him good day.

So now I had a fourth name to add to my list. Sir Humphrey Mallard, a director of the East India Company. A man who made lots and lots of lovely money. I hasten to point out, lest I appear anything but entirely truthful on the matter, I also had a very nice diary for Julius. And another pencil. What I didn’t realize at that point, as I exited the building, was that I was being watched.


Gooseberry continues next Friday, September 5th.
Copyright Michael Gallagher 2014.
You can follow Michael’s musings on the foolhardiness of this project. Just click on this link to his blog: Writing Gooseberry.
Photograph: The Independent Shoe Black by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

So what did you think? Did you find any typos or continuity errors? Please let me know—use the comment box below.

Sunday is a day of rest—for the carriage class, at least. For their servants it’s a different matter, though even they can expect a few sweet hours in the afternoon to conduct their lives in a manner of their own choosing. By a happy coincidence, Sunday is also the only day that my brother officially has off, so it’s the one day of the week when we get a chance to do things together. He was going to love what I had planned for him for today: ‘Jas. S. meets girl Rgnt’s zool. gards. monk. ho. 2.30 pm.’

Julius was overjoyed when I told him. So, unfortunately, was Bertha.

“I’ve never been to the zoo,” he said, his face lighting up at the prospect.

“Neither have we,” said Julius, “’cos it ain’t cheap to get in.”

“Isn’t cheap,” I corrected him. “Bertha, it’s not a good idea for you to come with us,” I added.

Bertha’s face fell. “’Course not, ’course not,” he mumbled. “It ain’t cheap to get in.”

“It’s not the cost I’m worried about.”

“No? Wot, then? Wot you bleedin’ worried about?”

I didn’t want to say that Miss Penelope might be there, and that I was hoping to spy on her—at least, not in front of Julius. I had to settle for: “The lady’s maid you were following, it’s possible she might try to meet someone there today. She could recognize you, Bertha.”

“Not if I was in disguise, she couldn’t.”

“Disguise?”

“Turn round, both of you. You don’t want to be gawking at no lady while she’s undressing!”

We did as Bertha requested and both averted our eyes. Two minutes went by, punctuated by rustlings and the occasional grunt.

“All right, you can look.”

Julius’s eyes were popping out of his head. I expect mine were too. There stood Bertha, looking extremely uncomfortable in a pair of blue serge trousers and a matching jacket. He’d hidden his long, dark hair under the rim of a docker’s flat cap. Since I knew Bertha had no money to speak of, I dreaded to think how he’d come by this get-up.

“Wot d’ya think?” he asked nervously.

I was so used to seeing Bertha in a dress, that, for a moment, I couldn’t speak. In one sense, he still looked like Bertha; in another, he didn’t.

“You look like a man,” said Julius.

“Uncanny, ain’t it? Gawd, I never thought I’d be reduced to doin’ drag.”

“It’s the perfect disguise, Bertha.”

“So I can come?”

“I’ll need to use the coins you’ve been practicing with…but, yes. You can come.”

“If you take ’is coins, how will young Sprat ever learn his money?”

“Young who?”

“Young Sprat here.”

Young Sprat beamed his approval at his new nickname.

“I’ll replace them tomorrow,” I promised.

Though Miss Penelope wasn’t due until two-thirty (if in fact she was going to be there at all), we set off early in order to make the most of the day. We walked up to the Thornhill Bridge, then took the steps down to the canal path below. There’d been a frost during the night, and the grass beneath our feet was still crunchy, as it was only now beginning to thaw.

“You want to steer clear of that place,” muttered Bertha, as we passed the grim-looking workhouse on our left. We all stared at it and shivered, as if the air in its vicinity was somehow colder.
“Come, let’s move on,” I suggested.

We followed the cut as it curved its way through open fields, calling out to any lock keepers we knew by sight, and waving at the occupants of the narrowboats we encountered. Normally Julius would have attempted to pat the horses that pulled the barges along—a thing that on occasion had landed him in trouble with their owners—but today he ignored them, his mind clearly on other things. He even ignored the railway yards that lay beyond the wharves at Camden, where we’d spent many a happy Sunday watching trains come and go.

When we finally reached the zoo gates, Julius could scarcely contain his excitement. He was practically dancing a jig as we lined up outside the ticket hut. I fished the money out of my pocket—God bless per diems—and started counting out what we needed. Bertha saw what I was doing, and laid his hand on my wrist to stop me.

“Why don’t you let young Sprat do that?” he asked.

Doubtful of the outcome, though figuring it couldn’t hurt, I held out the coins on my palm.

“How much is it?” asked Julius.

“A shilling each,” replied Bertha, peering at the only part of the sign he could read.

Julius stared at my palm so hard, it felt like he was trying to read my fortune.

“Come on, Sprat,” urged Bertha. “You can do it. Just keep rememberin’ who needs wot.”

“One for you,” he said, picking out a shilling coin and glancing up at Bertha. “And one for you,” he said, choosing another one for me.

There was a least one more shilling in my hand, but it was partially hidden by the pennies. When I went to uncover it with my finger, Bertha slapped my hand away. As the seconds dragged by, the tension became unbearable.

Suddenly Julius’s face lit up. “And one for me,” he said, unearthing the silver piece from the pile of coppers. “Three shillings, one for each of us.”

Julius handed the coins to the man in the hut and received his three tickets in return. He looked as if he might faint with joy. I briefly wondered how Miss Penelope could afford an expensive outing like this on a weekly basis, but then realized that, unlike us, she didn’t have to shell out for her food and her lodgings. Even the coal for her fire was paid for. Every penny she earned was hers for the spending, and, like all servants, she had precious little time to spend it in.

“See, Sprat? Told yeh you could do it.”

“I really did it, didn’t I?” He threw his arms around Bertha and gave him a hug.

We started down the long walkway in high spirits. They were soon to be extinguished when all we saw were cattle and horses grazing in the field on our right.

“I seen enough damned cows to last a bleedin’ lifetime,” growled Bertha, referring to the ones he’d encountered along the Cally Road.

“Look!” cried Julius, pointing in the distance. At the end of the path, half-hidden by the dozens of people gathered there, was a bear climbing up a pole. “Quick,” he said, and started running towards it. Bertha and I were hot on his heels.

As we got closer, it became apparent why the bear was climbing. The crowd was supplying him with fruit and cakes, which his keeper passed to him on the end of a stick. Sometimes he dropped them into the pit below, where they were quickly snapped up by one of the other bears.

When we finally managed to pry Julius away, we discovered a wealth of different creatures just around the corner—pelicans, leopards, raccoons, and wolves.

“What are they?” asked Julius, staring in wonderment at a herd of bizarre-looking animals with tiny heads and arms, but huge tails and feet.

“The sign says ‘Kangaroos’. According to this, they’re native to Australia.”

“Do you think they make good pets?”

I sincerely hoped they didn’t.

“Gawd, to think that Ned looks out ’is window, and sees them every day of his life!”

It was a sobering thought.

By one o’clock we’d worked up quite an appetite, so I bought us some buns and a slab of veal and ham pie each. The sun had come out, so we sat on the grass to eat, watching the llamas as they careered about their pen. I could also keep an eye on the time, for there was a clock on the roof of their stable. The afternoon wore on. By two-fifteen we’d positioned ourselves out of sight on the far side of the monkey house, which afforded us a view of the entrance, but only if we peered round the corner. I began to question the wisdom of this approach, since three heads poking around the side of the building was bound to draw attention, especially as Julius had begun to whisper, “Is that her? Is that her?” about every young woman he spied.

“This isn’t going to work,” I told them. “Bertha, why don’t you take Julius back to see the zebras?”

“But, Octopus, I want to help. So does Sprat here, don’t yeh, Sprat?”

Julius gave a violent nod of agreement.

“Then we need a way to get out there in the open without being noticed.”

“I got an idea,” said Bertha, grabbing me and Julius by the arm, and spinning us round so that we were both facing away from him. He prodded us together till we stood shoulder to shoulder. “Concentrate, you two! You’re a couple of feelies, see—?”

“We’re what?” gasped Julius.

“Young lads, young lads,” he snapped. “I’m your beloved father—right?—and all three of us is havin’ a nice day out.” Pulling us closer, he clapped one large hand over the left side of Julius’s face, effectively shielding it from view. He then clapped his other over the right side of mine. Blinkered like this, I suddenly understood what it felt like to be a cart horse. “I’m just showing me boys the sights, yeh? Wot could be more natural than that? Ready?”

He steered us out on to the patch of ground in front of the entrance, and not a moment too soon, for even with my restricted view of the world, I could see Miss Penelope approaching.

“It’s her,” I whispered to try and warn Bertha.

“I see ’er,” said Bertha, already turning us to face another direction.

“What’s she doing?”

“She’s talking to some cove in the doorway. ’E looks like ’e ain’t eat or slept for a week.”

“How does she look?”

“Like she’s a palone in love. Damn it all! They’re goin’ inside.”

I felt a sudden pressure on my cheek. “Bertha, what are you doing?”

“Shush! I’m gettin’ us in there with them. How else will we hear wot they say? Just you relax and let me guide yeh. Remember, we’re a family—right?—out seeing the sights.”

In this respect, Julius was far more adept at playing the part than I was. As soon as he set eyes on the monkeys, he became entranced. He kept pointing out one gibbering primate after another as Bertha moved us ever closer to Miss Penelope and James. Eventually the pair came into earshot, and I finally heard James speak.

“What happened to you last Sunday? Why didn’t you come?”

“James, the house was under siege. I couldn’t get away.”

“Under siege?”

“From the same people who were pestering you at Portland Place, I think.”

“Oh, Penelope! I never imagined for a moment that they’d connect you to me. You don’t know how sorry I am that I put you through all this. But the photograph, it’s safe?”

Miss Penelope remained silent.

“For heaven’s sake, Penelope, tell me it’s safe!”

“It’s safe enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“James, they broke into Montagu Square. They searched my room, but luckily they didn’t find it. From then on, I had no choice but to carry it about with me—which would have been fine—but on Monday Miss Rachel insisted I accompany her to Mrs. Merridew’s. They ambushed me in the street.”

“No! Darling, were you hurt?”

“Just my pride, James—but, honestly, it was was awful.”

“It weren’t so bleedin’ awful,” muttered Bertha. “I seen a damn sight worse than wot she got.”

“Bertha! Shhh!”

“I knew that if I kept hold of it,” Miss Penelope continued, “they’d be bound to find it on me, so I slipped it into Mrs. Merridew’s handbag. Fortunately, they didn’t look there.”

“Oh, thank God. And you managed to get it back afterwards?”

“That’s the problem, James. I didn’t. Your old mistress discovered it before I had a chance to.”

“What?”

“She found it in her bag, and was so perplexed by it that she had Miss Rachel call her lawyer.”

“No! No, no, no! How could you let this happen?”

“James, I had no choice. I could hardly claim it was mine, and if I told the truth, it would have meant involving you. You have no idea what it cost me to hold my tongue! Miss Rachel is not merely my employer, James; we grew up together, she and I. We were playmates when we were younger. Oh! How I loathe abusing her trust.”

“Curse it and damn it to blazes!” His outburst set the nearest group of monkeys off screeching and clambering about. “Oh, let me think, let me think! Where is the daguerreotype now?”

“With Mr. Bruff, Miss Rachel’s lawyer. In all likelihood, it’s safer in his care.”

“Safer? What if these people go to him, and say, ‘Actually, that photograph’s mine’? What if he simply hands it to them? What then?”

“Please do not adopt that tone of voice with me. I was only trying to help.”

“You don’t seem to understand, it’s not just the boy’s life that’s at stake!”

“Boy? He’s no mere a boy, James. Oh, yes! That’s right! I know! He’s a maharajah, no less. Did it not occur to you to mention that to me when you enlisted my aid?”

There was a brief, awkward pause before James replied, “I was trying to protect you, Penelope.”

“Protect me? How? By keeping me in the dark?” I could practically hear James scowling. “Just what has your brother got himself mixed up in, I ask myself?”

“Thomas may be overly ambitious, but deep down inside he’s a good man! When his guvnor approached him with an odd proposition, he saw it as an opportunity to further his career. Then he discovered how shady it was: he was meant to keep the boy and his guardian captive, to clear the way so they could replace the maharajah with an impostor.”

“To what purpose, James?”

“He’s not sure. As the junior clerk with least seniority, he wasn’t privy to his guvnor’s scheme. He was kept in the dark about most things, which was hardly difficult, seeing as he and his prisoners were stuck on their own in some remote farmhouse, out Twickenham way. He certainly didn’t realize they planned to murder the boy; he thought they just needed him out of the picture until the day after the reception.”

“What reception?”

“Some special function they’re hosting at Thomas’s work. Look, I know he’s been an idiot—my brother would be the first to admit it—but, honestly, as soon as he got wind of what they were up to, he tried to do the decent thing. He took the boy and his guardian and went into hiding.”

“And the daguerreotype? How does that figure into this?”

“According to Thomas, it’s the only proof that the lad they have working for them is an impostor. While it survives, there’s still a chance that he can be exposed for what he is. But if they manage to destroy it, then…”

“Then what, James?”

James sighed. “No one is safe. Not me, not Thomas, and certainly not the maharajah. Perhaps, Penelope, not even you.”

So the maharajah—the real maharajah, that is—was now in hiding, beyond the reach of Treech and his cronies. Was the boy who was posing as him aware of the fact? I rather thought not.

“If the photograph’s proof,” Miss Penelope went on, “why didn’t Thomas use it weeks ago, and expose these people and their horrid plans?”

“Because he doesn’t know what it’s meant to prove—or how it’s meant to prove it, exactly. The only reason he knows that it’s proof at all is because his colleague happened to joke about it when he entrusted the portrait to him. Oh, I bet they’re kicking themselves that they didn’t get rid of it when they had the chance.”

“So where is Thomas now?” Miss Penelope’s question was greeted by silence. “James?”

“I don’t know,” he said at last.

“You don’t know, or you don’t want to tell me?” More silence. “Oh, let me guess,” she continued, her anger rising and setting off another bout of shrieking from the monkeys, “you’re just trying to protect me again!”
“Penelope, wait! Where are you going?”

“Home, James. I’m going home. I find myself tiring of all this protection!” She stormed out.

James ran after her, but when he caught her up, she batted aside his restraining hand.

“Bertha,” I said, “stay here with Julius. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

I set off after James, who was standing motionless by this point, staring at the rear of Miss Penelope’s retreating form. Bertha was right; the man looked to be in really bad shape. His face was gaunt, his sandy-blond hair was unbrushed, and three days of prickly stubble adorned his prominent chin. His dull, glassy eyes barely registered my approach.

“What do you want?” he asked, once he realized I’d been gazing up at him for more than a minute.

“I wants yeh to know wot we’ll do when we get our ’ands on the duggairiotype,” I growled, doing a passable imitation of Bertha, though obviously nowhere near as deep. “We’re gunna cut that dear, sweet girl of yours. Cut ’er to shreds, we is.”

James paled. “You’ll leave her alone,” he gasped. “It’s me you want, not her. I swear she knows nothing.”

Then he added, “Oi! Where do you think you’re off to?” as I raced to take cover behind the nearest tree, for coming down the path were two of Johnny’s men. I didn’t recognize them per se, as Mr. Bruff might put it; I simply recognized the type. Despite the modest finery of their attire, they stuck out a mile from the crowd—two young men on their own amid the ebb and flow of courting couples and family groups. I kept watch to see if they would make a move on James, but they seemed perfectly content just keeping him under surveillance. James must have noticed them also, for within minutes he’d given them the slip.

The fact that Miss Penelope adored James had been clear to me from the outset. And now I was sure that James loved Miss Penelope, too.


Gooseberry continues next Friday, September 12th.
Copyright Michael Gallagher 2014.
You can follow Michael’s musings on the foolhardiness of this project. Just click on this link to his blog: Writing Gooseberry.
Photograph: Clapham Common Industries by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

So what did you think? Did you find any typos or continuity errors? Please let me know—use the comment box below.

“How are those eyes of yours doing, Gooseberry?” inquired Mr. Grayling, the infuriating junior clerk who bestowed on me my nickname. “Either of them popped out of your head yet?”

Not so far, Christopher, but I’m sure they would, the moment your brain produces one intelligent thought.

I headed for Mr. Crabbit’s door and knocked.

“Enter!”

“Good morning, sir,” I said, as I slipped into the room.

“What’s this, boy?” he asked.

“A receipt, sir. For two diaries and a pencil.” I swear there was a tear in the old man’s eye, and foolishly imagined it could only be from gratitude.

“I expect you have come for your per diem?”

“If it pleases you, sir.” He cast me a look to demonstrate just how much it pleased him, but he counted out my money nonetheless.

“Undoubtedly you will have heard about the fire?”

“If you’re speaking of that terrible blaze last night, sir, I think the whole of London saw it.” Julius, Bertha, and I had joined our neighbors down on the street, watching as the horizon lit up like a Roman candle. Although it was a chilly evening, it wasn’t long before lanterns were brought out, food and drink was being passed around, and jokes were being traded about the chances of a building catching fire on Burns’ Night. I really couldn’t have wished for a more exciting end to a perfect Sunday—one I expect Julius will take with him to his grave.

“Then I presume you will appreciate the need to spend conservatively at this time,” said Mr. Crabbit, as he handed me the coins, “and I shall require a valid receipt for every purchase.”

“Sorry, sir, I don’t follow…”

“We hold a small reserve of cash in this office for contingencies, and we shall just have to make do until the bank can arrange an emergency line of credit.”

“The bank?”

“Mr. Bruff’s bank, boy.”

“What about Mr. Bruff’s bank, sir?”

“Last night it burned to the ground.”

I dashed out of there like I myself was on fire, sprinted past Mr. Clueless Grayling—who was occupying his time by lobbing crushed-up balls of paper at his fellow clerks—and then bolted up the stairs as quick as I could. Abandoning my normal practice of knocking, I threw open the door.

Mr. Bruff sat slumped in his office chair, his features drawn and gray. “I can’t bring myself to believe it,” he said, looking up at me. “To destroy a single photograph, they burn down an entire bank? Tell me it isn’t true. Tell me the blaze was just a coincidence. Tell me something—tell me anything!”

“Mr. Bruff, I think we both know it was no coincidence,” I said, closing the door on the Georges, who, having been woken by my sudden arrival, were now trying to peek through the crack. “First you inform Mr. Treech that you deposited the daguerreotype with your bank, then two days later your bank burns to the ground. That sounds like a classic case of cause and effect to me.”

Mr. Bruff let out a wail. “To think I liked that man! And now that they believe the daguerreotype is no more, they’ll kill the maharajah.”

“They believe it’s no more?” I queried.

Shamefaced, Mr. Bruff rose and crossed the floor to his safe. “Last Friday, as I was waiting in line to be served at the bank, I started thinking: what if Gooseberry’s suspicions are just figments of the boy’s imagination? What if he wrote the note himself? What if Mr. Treech was exactly what he seemed to be, an honest, congenial man? Fearing that I was over-reacting by depositing the photograph, I returned it to my pocket and brought it back here.” He pulled open the safe door and extracted the slim, leather case. “Now I feel I have no choice but to take the matter to the police.”

“Mr. Bruff, you can’t!”

“Let Scotland Yard deal with these rival gangs! Let them be responsible for protecting the maharajah!”

“Mr. Bruff, I’m begging you. This is not something you want to do.”

“Gooseberry, I have no wish to discuss it further. I have made my decision.”

“You cannot involve the police in this, sir.”

“Why not?”

“Because one of those gangs is not a gang. It’s Miss Penelope.”

Mr. Bruff’s eyes, which had shrunken into his head, suddenly grew wider. “Miss Penelope?” he stammered. “Miss Rachel’s maid?”

I nodded. “If you bring the police into this, they’ll find that she was the one who put that daguerreotype in Mrs. Merridew’s handbag. She was trying to keep it from falling into the wrong hands, for it’s the only proof that the boy we met is not the real Maharajah of Lahore—though how it proves it, I really cannot say. For the moment, however, the real maharajah is safe…at least, I believe him to be. He’s in the care of a Mr. Thomas Shepherd, brother of one Mr. James Shepherd, Mrs. Merridew’s former footman and Miss Penelope’s Sunday sweetheart. As far as I can tell, Dr. Login is with them too.”

Mr. Bruff blinked and rubbed his chin. “How long have you known this?” he asked.

“Honestly? I’ve known about Miss Penelope’s part in it for some time. I didn’t inform you because I knew you would wish to confront her, and I wanted to give her the chance to tell me her side of the story. The rest of it I only discovered yesterday.”

“And that’s everything? You’re holding nothing back?”

I put on my offended face, knowing that my honest face wouldn’t suffice. “Why should I hold anything back, sir?” I demanded, perfectly aware that I’d made no mention of Josiah Hook and Sir Humphrey Mallard, or the East India Company connection to the case.

“Gooseberry, even if I don’t call in Scotland Yard, I do have a duty of care to tell my clients what I know.”

“The Blakes? But if you tell the Blakes, sir, they might sack Miss Penelope.”

“True. And they’d be well within their rights to bring the police into it themselves.”

“But, Miss Penelope…she was only trying to help.”

“I am not insensitive to her position, Gooseberry, yet I still believe the Blakes deserve to know.”

“Then let me be the one to tell them, sir.”

On the cab journey there, Mr. Bruff hemmed and hawed most the way, and twice he had to stop himself from asking me to explain it all again. Awkwardly, it was Miss Penelope who answered the door to us. This time, I’m sorry to say, her eyes were full of apprehension. She could hardly bring herself to look at us as showed us to the library, and appeared to be on the verge of tears when she went to fetch the family. If Mr. Bruff had any doubts about the veracity of my statement, after a minute in her presence they all went up in smoke.

“Mr. Bruff, are you sure we should do this?” I asked, as soon as we were alone together.

“Octavius, we must. You may wish to leave out the part about the bank, though. It makes me look rather…rather…”

“I’ll leave out the part about the bank.”

Mr. Blake arrived first, followed shortly by his wife.

“Penelope is just collecting Aunt Merridew,” Mrs. Blake explained, as she took her seat. “They should be along shortly. I take it there have been developments?”

“Of a sort, Mrs. Blake, of a sort,” my employer replied. “Gooseberry has discovered something that I feel you should know.”

“Really? Ah, here comes my aunt now.”

Miss Penelope helped the old lady into a chair, bobbed a brief curtsey to Miss Rachel, and went to leave the room.

“If Mrs. Blake has no objections,” said Mr. Bruff quickly, “I would prefer that Miss Penelope remained.”

It was as if a mask had dropped from the poor girl’s face. Suddenly she looked frail and wretched”.

“I beg your Ladyship’s pardon,” came a voice from the doorway, “but if my daughter is to stay, then I should like to be present, too.” Mr. Betteredge, the Blakes’ elderly steward, cast a severe look in my direction as he entered the room. I noticed he was carrying his copy of Robinson Crusoe with him.

“Well, now that everyone is here,” Mrs. Blake said pleasantly, “why don’t you begin?”

“Before I start, miss,” I requested, “I’d like to ask Mr. Betteredge to share with us the passage he’s been reading from his book.”

The old man smiled, and with great deliberation opened the volume at a page about three-quarters of the way through. He cleared his throat, and in a tremulous voice he read, “‘As for the maid, she was a very honest, modest, sober, and religious young woman; had a very good share of sense; was agreeable enough in her person; spoke very handsomely, and to the purpose; always with decency and good manners, and not backward to speak when any thing required it, or impertinently forward to speak when it was not her business’.” He closed the book with a thump and looked up. “When it was not her business,” he repeated.

Mr. and Mrs. Blake looked distinctly puzzled, as did Mrs. Merridew. Mr. Bruff closed his eyes and started massaging his eyelids with his thumb and forefinger. Miss Penelope stood by the door, tears streaming silently down her cheeks.

“Thank you, Mr. Betteredge, sir,” I said, meeting his frosty stare. “I will try to bear that in mind when I say what I have to say.”

“Come on, Gooseberry,” urged Mr. Blake. “Out with it! All this suspense is killing me.”

“Very good, sir. I am going to tell you a story. There are some aspects that I’m still not clear on, but it starts with a plot to replace Dulip Singh, the young Maharajah of Lahore, with an impostor—and then do away with him, and his guardian, Dr. Login.”

Mrs. Merridew gasped. “The boy in the portrait?”

“Yes, miss. The boy in the portrait you found.”

“But why would they wish to replace him?” asked Mrs. Blake. “What did they hope to achieve?”

“I’ve been giving that a lot of thought, miss. I think it’s because the boy they replaced him with happens to have skills.”

“Skills?”

“He’s a common thief, miss,” I replied, though I thought it best not to add ‘like me’—not that I’m in the least bit common. But then, if I’m going to be honest, neither was the boy I’d met.

“Gooseberry, how do you know this?”

“When Mr. Bruff and I went to see him on Friday, he filched my handkerchief from inside my jacket, miss, in order to smuggle me a note. The note said, ‘Do not let Treech—’”

“Treech?”

“The man who seems to be in charge of Dr. Login’s asylum now. He’s definitely one of the ringleaders, though I’m not sure the boy is a willing accomplice. I think he’s being coerced into it.”

“Go on.”

“Well, the note said, ‘Do not let Treech get his hands on the photograph. He will destroy it, and the Maharajah will be put to death.’”

“Hold on,” said Mr. Blake, “your telling us the plot failed? The real maharajah is still alive?”

“Yes, sir. You see, their plan was only partially successful. One of the conspirators, a certain Mr. Thomas Shepherd,”—I heard a sharp intake of breath from the doorway—“baulked at the idea of killing a child. So he spirited the maharajah and his guardian into hiding, and took the one piece of evidence that could prove the impostor was an impostor.”

“The daguerreotype…”

“Yes, sir. The daguerreotype, which he gave to his brother for safekeeping.”

Mrs. Merridew stirred in her seat. “So how did I come to be in possession of it?” she asked.

All cried out, Miss Penelope raised her eyes and looked at me. “If you’re going to tell them, then get on with it,” she said, raising frowns on everyone’s faces. It was not the place of servants to speak so directly.

“You must understand,” I continued, “that Thomas Shepherd is a man who made bad choices, then wanted to put things right. If the gang ever finds him, his life is forfeit, too. Anyone who helps him, helps him at his or her peril.”

“Young man, as noble as you may paint the man, that hardly answers my question.”

“Mrs. Merridew, Thomas Shepherd’s brother’s name is James. Mr. James Shepherd.”

Now the woman was frowning with the effort of remembering. “My footman?” she said at last.

“The same. Persuaded by Thomas that the boy’s life was in danger, he swore to protect the daguerreotype, but when the gang tracked him to your residence, he too was forced to go into hiding. Under the circumstances, there was only one person he could entrust it to: his Sunday sweetheart—”

Everyone looked as the library door swung open, and Miss Penelope ran from the room. Mrs. Blake, whose expression showed that she had guessed what was coming, rose and ran after her. Mr. Blake, who is not quite as sharp-witted as his wife, pieced the story together a few seconds later, and sank down into his chair with a sigh.

“For the edification of Mrs. Merridew,” said Mr. Betteredge, steadfastly refusing to look in my direction, “pray continue.”

“Yes, whom did my footman entrust with the portrait?”

“Miss Penelope, miss. She and James were courting.”

“Courting? But that’s ridiculous. They never had time to court.”

“They both had Sunday afternoons off, miss.”

Mrs. Merridew blinked, as if grappling with a new and disturbing idea. “Betteredge, do servants court?” she demanded.

“It has been known, madam.”

“Oh.” She sat back with a troubled look on her face as she tried to digest this news.

Mr. Blake had recovered sufficiently by this point to ask, “So it was Miss Penelope who slipped the daguerreotype into Aunt Merridew’s bag when the gang attacked them in the street?”

“Yes, sir, it was. But she did it with the best of intentions. Surely you can see that?”

“I do, I do. But a boy’s life is at stake, Gooseberry. We have an obligation to take this matter to the police.”

“The police, sir?” howled Betteredge. “But my poor daughter! Her good name will be dragged through the dirt!”

For a second, it looked as if the old man was trying to take a small step forward, but for some reason was unable to do so. Then slowly his body started to topple.

“Bruff!” cried Mr. Blake, springing to his feet. “Help me!” Supporting the steward by his armpits, the two men assisted him into a chair.

“I’m fine, sir, I’m fine,” complained the old man. “It was just a slight turn. I shall be as right as rain in a minute or two.”

“What’s your opinion, Bruff?” Mr. Blake asked in a whisper, as his wife re-entered the room. “We need to call the police in on this, don’t we?”

Mrs. Blake froze. “Franklin, did you not learn a thing,” she asked, “from your wretched involvement with the Moonstone? Miss Penelope has told me everything, and we are not about to summon the police.”

“But, my dear, we have to do something.”

“It occurs to me that we already have one of the finest detectives in London on the case,” she said, turning to me. “Gooseberry, are you prepared to investigate further?”

“I am, miss.”

“I won’t stand for your putting yourself in any danger, mind.”

“No, miss.”

“And Mr. Blake will bear all the expenses.”

That was indeed music to my ears. Per diems can only get you so far in this life. “Thank you, miss.”

“There. Then it’s all settled.”

Mrs. Blake was a most determined woman, I reflected, on the journey back to the office. She brooked none of the objections that her wearying husband put forward, often stilling his tongue with a single withering look. When she said something was settled, it was settled—much to my own satisfaction, God bless her. But all these admiring thoughts were blown away like thistle seeds in a gale as the cab turned into Gray’s Inn Square, for who should come running—running no less!—out of Mr. Bruff’s offices, but the younger of the two Georges. As he bolted into the path of the cab, the cabbie had to pull his horse up sharpish, sending Mr. Bruff and I flying forward in out seats.

“George? What on earth are you playing at?” screeched my employer out the window.

“Sir! Sir! I has to call for a copper, sir. There’s been murder…actual murder!”

“Murder?”

“Inside, sir,” said George, pointing.

“Pay the cabbie, Gooseberry,” cried Mr. Bruff, as he jumped from the carriage to the pavement below, and dashed into the building with George.

I paid the man as quickly as I could, and then followed. The door stood open, so as I clambered up the steps, I could see that every single member of staff had crammed themselves into the reception area. They were staring at a man who was gasping his final breaths as he lay dying on the floor by the foot of the stairs. His wire-rimmed spectacles sat crookedly across the bridge of his suntanned nose, and a dark, red stain blossomed from the breast of his well-cut jacket. It was Mr. Treech.


Gooseberry continues next Friday, September 19th.
Copyright Michael Gallagher 2014.
You can follow Michael’s musings on the foolhardiness of this project. Just click on this link to his blog: Writing Gooseberry.
Photograph: Caney the Clown by John Thomson, used courtesy of the London School of Economics’ Digital Library under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 licence.

So what did you think? Did you find any typos or continuity errors? Please let me know—use the comment box below.