Chapter 3: December 21
“It is possible,” Amy said, that there is something in common with S and M, you know.”
McFergus looked at her blankly, for a moment before he figured out that she meant. They’d acquired another ticket early in the morning without trouble and he’d insisted his wife pay the toilet fee before the train left the station.
It was McFergus’s position as a former inspector, and his willingness to dress properly (tall hat, bow tie, and three-piece suit), rather than his available funds, that allowed them into the second-class carriage. There were one or two other men of the lower middle class in the carriage, but most of the men, as well as the three other women, were servants to those travelling in the first-class carriages.
Since Amy wanted to talk more about the case, obviously without sharing everything with the other passengers, and since the inspector knew better than to try to stop her, he nodded. “But that doesn’t mean we yet know, or can know, what that common item is.” Outside, the last of the seemingly endless stretches of shacks the surrounded the city gave way to farmland and some small forests. That many poor people, McFergus thought, and sheep in the meadow and grouse in the forest. They’ll need gamekeepers here. He smiled that the thought of himself as a youth, setting traps for the poachers.
“Perhaps the clerk, Mr. C,” Amy suggested. “He knew both of those misers, and might have taken to drink.”
“Possible.” A factory, still under construction, passed by on a hill.
“Or perhaps Mr. C’s wife thinks he should have a better salary after all his years of service and is trying to pry him out of his current position. You might check out his circumstance.”
“I will do that. That’s a good idea.” McFergus watched men at work in the distance, building a water pipeline towards the city. The world never stops changing, he thought. a little wistfully. He realized how long it had been since he’d been out of the city.
“Perhaps someone spent seven years in jail,” Amy suggested. “Perhaps he’s returned to finish the job.”
“A patient fellow,” McFergus said. “But one who’s so foolish as to let his plans circulate in London and so disliked that people are notifying the police.”
“Unlikely,” his wife agreed. “But if S dies, who gets the money?”
“That,” McFergus said, “is something I do have to investigate. A personal motive would be easier than one directed against the company.”
He looked out the window, watching the country landscape go by. There were a few farmers up already, and once he saw a young boy asleep under a hay rick. The lad, McFergus figured, was probably a runaway, heading for London. That wouldn’t be unusual; only twenty percent of the people in London had been born there. In spite of the cholera and typhus epidemics, there was always hope. It would have been a cold night, he realized, for the boy had only a rough shirt and pants to keep him warm. He hoped the boy made it to shelter. Lord knew, Ian McFergus had thought often enough of running away to Edinburgh in his own youth.
He looked around at Amy, who had grown silent. “You are remembering your childhood,” he said. “You do that when you leave the city.”
“I was seven when my father brought me to London,” she said. “Before we moved again to Manchester.”
“And we found each other there.”
Amy smiled. “Yes, we did.” She watched the fields go by. “I was happy in those early years. Weren’t you?”
“I played Cheyenne and Apache games out on the hills,” McFergus said. “I’d say I was happy, although some in the village thought I was bam.” He reminded her, “I stayed in a village longer than you.”
“You did.”
“It gets less of an idyll as you get older, especially for girls. The local women gossip all the time, even if they have to invent things.”
“I know that,” Amy said. “The city’s a more private place, if you want that sort of thing.”
“I did, for years,” McFergus said. “Are you thinking of moving away from London?”
“It’s not the city we knew when we came there,” she pointed out.
“It’s not.”
“Don’t you get the urge to walk the hills and forest again?”
McFergus sighed. “I do, my love. Sometimes I wake up dreaming about it. But it’s been a long time, now.”
“It has, Ian; it has.”
Altham Grange was a town. In the last century it had grown from a country house with attached farm buildings to a place with a main street, a market square, and, since the railway had touched its northern edge, some new factories by the track.
Amy and Ian McFergus got off the train with Ian carrying a small bag over his shoulder. He’d suggested a lunch at one of the public houses Altham Grange was likely to have, but Amy had insisted on packing some bread, pickles, and boiled eggs, “just in case.”
There was little activity that early in the morning; most people were either sleeping in on their one day off (those that got one day a week off) or preparing for church. McFergus was surprised to note the brick road into the town; he remembered mud as the introduction to the places he’d visited outside major cities. Someone’s got money, he thought.
For a moment, the two stood there as the other passengers collected their luggage and headed into town. Some were walking, especially those still shivering from the open third-class carriages, but others had people meet them with horse buggies or pony carts. There were no cabs waiting. Obviously the local churches were still strong enough to enforce a no-work-on-Sunday rule, at least outside the walls of a home.
“What now, inspector?” Amy asked.
McFergus pulled out his watch. “The churches should be letting out in an hour.”
“And you expect to find Miss Boyle there?”
He smiled. “Well, I hope to. Or at least we might find someone who knows her.”
“The Anglican church, you think?” She looked towards the tall Elizabethan tower peeking out from behind smaller buildings. “Maybe she doesn’t go to church.”
McFergus nodded. Only one in two people in England still went to church anymore, even in the villages, and even those people were as likely to go to the newer Methodist church as the traditional Church of England. If McFergus were to go to church with Amy, he’d have chosen Methodism, simply because the social order was so strong in the Anglican church, or the Presbyterian church in which he’d been raised. He’d been in a few Anglican churches, and had seen how the people sat in pews according to social standing. At the back, the working class people seemed to feel that the sermon was often delivered in a language that wasn’t theirs, mocking their lack of education and promoting the feeling that God really preferred the upper classes.
“If she’s working at Millbridge Abbey,” he said, wrinkling his nose, “the squire will make sure she and the other servants go to the Church of England.”
“Probably right,” Amy acknowledged. They walked into the silent town; those people who didn’t go to church generally had the sense to stay indoors on Sunday morning. “Aren’t you glad I brought something for a lunch?” Amy asked.
“I suspect the public houses will open for a couple of hours after noon,” he said. They walked past the old church, then down the main street of the town. “This isn’t London,” he observed, looking into the closed stores.
They finished eating the lunch on the steps of a closed greengrocer’s shop. McFergus wished he’d brought some water until he found the community pump on a side street. He rinsed the cup attached by a chain, inspected the water, tasted it, and drank. It wasn’t bad, and the flavour was better than what was available in London, so he passed the cup to Amy. She drank sparingly, as women did when away from home.
They were there when the church doors opened. The priest came out and waited on the steps. One of the next people was a policeman that McFergus recognized. The man looked at McFergus, moved close, and smiled. He tilted his head towards McFergus and whispered, “Inspector McF
ergus. Undercover, or just on a holiday?”
McFergus said, “Constable Bowe.” Then, inspecting Bowe’s outfit, said, “Ah, Inspector Bowe. Very good! Can I tell you later? Right now I’m looking for a Virginia Boyle.”
“Drop by the office this afternoon, if you will. Miss Boyle is the woman in the red dress and pink hat.” Bowe touched his hat and walked off, not looking back.
“We’ll be neighbours of her cousin, if anybody asks,” Amy whispered to McFergus.
McFergus smiled. “I like that.” Suddenly he was glad he had brought his wife. Several people were looking at the Inspector and his wife, obviously curious as to why two strangers had been talking to the police.
Amy stepped up to Miss Boyle. “Virginia Boyle?”
The servant looked around, obviously frightened. “I have some news about your brother,” Amy said, loud enough for others to hear. “He’s got himself into some trouble. Can we talk?”
“Of course!”
McFergus led his wife and the servant away from the crowd, along a side street. “Miss Boyle,” he started, when they were alone.
“Which of my brothers is in trouble?” Virginia interrupted calmly in Bristol accent. “Not that it matters, since I haven’t seen either of them in more than ten years. Both are overseas, in Canada and in the United States.”
“Actually,” Amy said, “it’s nothing to do with your brothers. My husband is a police inspector, and he would like to ask a couple of questions. Do you mind?”
“Am I being charged with something?” Virginia Boyle asked, giving them a cold look.
“No, no,” McFergus said, waving his palms in front of him. “I’m a retired Inspector from London. I’m just looking into an old case.”
“And that case would be?”
“Jacob Marley’s death.”
“I was asleep in bed at the time.”
“Yes, of course you were. I didn’t think otherwise. I just wanted to ask you if you knew anything that might help me.”
“They never solved his murder?”
“They never thought it was a murder,” McFergus said.
“They didn’t ask me.”
“You think someone killed him?”
“I do,” Virginia said. “I can’t imagine him leaving his room after dark.” She looked at McFergus. “He wasn’t senile when I knew him, and he often told me he was afraid of the street after sundown. He didn’t change his mind even when they put the gaslights into the streets.”
“You can’t think of a reason he might have gone out?”
“Not in his night clothes. I think they said that’s how he was dressed when they found him at the bottom of the stairs.”
Amy broke in, “He might have….” She hesitated.
Virginia said, “He had his flash girls. But only in the afternoons, and only outside his house.” She noticed McFergus blushing and laughed. “And no, he never made any offers to me.”
McFergus covered his embarrassment with a question. “Was there no one who wanted him harm? No one who wanted his money?”
“Well,” said Virginia, “a fortnight or so before he died there was a man he argued with. I’d just come in to do the cleaning and Mr. Marley was still in his rooms.” She paused to think. “They stopped when I came, and the man left.”
“Do you remember what he looked like?” McFergus was hopeful for the first time.
“Medium height, medium weight. Dressed like a banker.”
“Do you have any idea what they were arguing about?”
Virginia hesitated again. “It’s been seven years. I think it was about a property.” She looked up at McFergus. “But I wouldn’t swear to that.” Suddenly she looked panicked. “I won’t have to swear to anything, will I?”
Amy shook her head. “You just continue with our story about your brother. You can make up the details of what our concern was. We know you don’t want to be seen talking to a policeman, even a former one.”
They all knew that, McFergus was sure. Even the hint of suspicion could well get a servant dismissed from her position. He nodded without saying anything.
“And you came all the way from London to ask me that?”
Amy laughed. “We felt the need to get out of London for a change of scenery.” She looked at her husband. “Ian’s retired now, and I wanted him to remember what sweet country air smells like.” She turned back towards Virginia. “How long have you worked here?”
“More than six years,” the servant said, looking down.
“You’re not happy here?” McFergus asked.
“It was steady work, and London was scant living.”
“But?” Amy raised her eyebrows.
Virginia turned to her. “It’s not as good as it sounds, Mrs. McFergus. It is constant work, from four in the morning until well after dark. There is no one to say, ‘You’ve done a fine job, Miss Boyle.’ And little opportunity for advancement.” I work steadily all day, and am tired when I get up.” She smiled wanly. “I remember London, and the people I knew there. Friends, sir. I had friends.”
“That,” said McFergus, “appears to be the way it is in England. It wasn’t much different in Scotland, you know.” He knew that servants worked long hours with little reward except for a bit of money to send back to their parents. Without servants, the upper classes, and even the middle classes, couldn’t maintain a home. He wondered if that would ever change; the coming of piped water, even if only in the cities, cut down on a servant’s work, but the employers always found more to do to make up for the time.
Without servants, the upper portions of the pyramid couldn’t keep their lifestyle. Without the payment the servants sent to their parents, a hard life in the villages would be even harder. McFergus shook his head; it had probably been the same since biblical times, but that didn’t make it right. It was a social contract with no lawyers to enforce it; too may servants were paid less than had been agreed upon and worked for longer hours than they were supposed to. Too many people treated their servants with contempt when compassion would have got them a better employee.
“My mother died last year,” Virginia said. “My father died from the consumption last week.” She looked at Amy. “I want to go to London.” She hesitated. “I want to be…. more free. “
“The factories of London won’t give you a bed or food,” Amy noted. “You lose a finger or refuse the boss a favour and you’ll be out in the cold with the mudlarks, wishing for a warm cot.”
“I will be able to go where I want on Sundays,” Virginia said. “I will be able to dance with young men to the music in the street.”
They had circled back to the business section of the village, by the greengrocer’s store. There was a cold wind blowing. “There are no young men who like you?” McFergus asked.
“They are slow, and they despair too much,” Virginia said. “They beat their wives and spend their money in the public house.” She shook her head. “The master’s youngest son is the only one who wants me, and I don’t want to be his mistress.”
McFergus took out his notepad and pencil. He wrote his address onto the top sheet and handed it to her. “I have no money to help you,” he said, while his wife watched him with raised eyebrows. “But who knows; I maybe able to do something, however small, if you get to London before we’ve decided to move to some village such as this.”
The young woman smiled, stuffed the paper into a pocket, and headed towards a group outside the church.
“Was that wise?” Amy asked her husband.
“I’ve been too wise for too long,” the inspector said. “It’s getting late in my life.”
Amy just patted him on the shoulder. He wondered what she meant with that. They watched people leaving the churches, their coats flapping in the cold wind. A few snowflakes fell from the sky, then stopped. “Not much like London,” Amy said.
“Not much.” Ian looked at the street; it was paved in brick for a short ways, before turning into mud again. “There’s not a lot
to do here.”
“It smells better, though. We could have a small cottage. And a garden. I could lean over the fence and talk to the neighbours.”
“It sounds nice, but you must remember that the locals would regard you as a stranger for at least the first fifty years,” Ian said, smiling. “I grew up in a place like this.”
“You grew up,” his wife reminded him, “in a place like Altham Grange used to be. It’s changed, I suspect, with the railway. And those factories” – she pointed to some new structures by the track – “must have attracted some outside workers. Don’t I see some new houses beside them?”
“We could join a group of other ‘outsiders’ and gossip about the inbred locals. Have our own corner of the local public house where locals would scowl at us and the pub master would serve us bad ales.”
“We could grow roses on vines on our fences. And raise our own carrots. Maybe have a few chickens and a duck.” Amy was watching the last of the people leaving the Methodist church.
“You have your filing job in London.”
“I’d miss that. I liked getting out of the house.”
“And I might miss walking through the crowds, wondering what to do with my day,” Ian said.
“And wondering when someone you threw into jail six years ago will try to chuck you into the nearest sewer,” Amy reminded him. “Here, they’ll just ignore you.”
“That’s true.” He sighed. “Maybe we’d better see the local constabulary.”
“You’re sure?”
“I promised.”
The office of the local police wasn't hard to locate; it was near the middle of the main street, next to a bakery. Constable Bowe called, "Come in," when McFergus knocked. "Thank you for coming," he said, when they'd seated themselves on hard wooden chairs in front of his desk. He tipped his hat to Amy.
"A pleasant enough town," McFergus said, after he'd introduced his wife. "It's been a few years since I've been out of London, except on police business."
"This isn't police business?" Constable Bowe raised his eyebrows and put his hands together on his desk.
"I'm retired now." He paused. "For six months."
"Ah. I see." He leaned back, and filled his pipe, taking his time about it. "Can I offer you a cigarette?" he asked McFergus .
McFergus declined. "I get enough food for my lungs in The Smoke, as you can imagine. But I may have a pipeful in a while.”
Bowe laughed. "I can imagine it. It's been almost four years since I left the force there, and it was bad enough then. I bet it's got worse."
"It has.” He scratched the back of his neck. "Must be different here."
"Oh, it was, when I got here. If your family hadn't been in the Grange for at least a century, you were just a stranger passing through. Of course," he added, blowing smoke, "that was changing even when I arrived, with the railway and the new factories. But the factory part of town kept away from the old parts. So it's changed a bit, but not a lot."
"I'm surprised they didn't want a local for constable."
"That," said Constable Bowe, "would have been a really bad idea, and they knew that from experience. Far too many family connections there would have been, and too many ways to get to the policeman through his family. My wife comes from Bath," he added.
"I can understand that. There are advantages to dealing with strangers all day."
"Maybe we'll hire you someday. The town's still growing." He raised one eyebrow at the inspector.
"I walk with a limp, and I'm too old to throw farm boys out of the public houses." McFergus gave a wry smile, and looked at Amy.
The constable spread his hands out. "The council probably wouldn't go for it anyway. I was thinking of a part-time detective, working full-time at a pitiful rate of pay. They're thinking of someone bigger than the farm boys." He sighed. "And you wouldn't come with a recommendation from Superintendent Bannim, either."
"You heard about that."
"It's about all I know about you. I still know a couple of men on the force and get the odd letter. A good detective but one inclined to go easier on the small miscreants than the Superintendent would."
"It had its advantages and disadvantages." McFergus rolled his eyes at the ceiling. "Bannim waited until I'd given a break to a Scot, then accused me of favouring my countrymen."
"Did you?"
"Probably. A bit. Anyway, I still have my pension, so Amy and I can stay alive. And Amy's got a part-time job at an insurance company." McFergus realized he was starting to sound a bit depressed.
"Well, a pension would go further in the Grange than in London. Might even be able to afford a servant for part of the day." He frowned. "I was told that one in three young women in Britain is in the service these days. One in three women and girls who should be seeing young men and getting married and raising children is working for richer people."
"Most of those young women," Amy broke in, "have no choice. Their parents would starve without the money the children send home."
The constable nodded. "That's the truth," he said, "but there are just too few laws against underpaying and overworking them. Every year we run across a situation in which the girl isn't paid at all."
"That's illegal," Amy said.
"It is, but part of a servant's wages can be withheld for damages, for example, and who's to argue against a rich person? Who's going to take the side of a servant who's made to pay for clothes, or travel expenses when they go to London?" He raised a finger. "Not that I've heard anything about our Miss Boyle's situation, except that she's a laundry maid and likely to stay that way if the housekeeper has her way." Abruptly, he changed the subject. "Have any parts of the city fallen into the earth yet? I hear so much about the tunnelling. Underground trains, even."
"Well," said McFergus, "we haven't had many actually fall into the tunnels they're making for sewers or water or the underground trains, but quite a number of buildings have cracks, and there's a constant stream of lawyers hired to prove that every cracked foundation in the city is a result of the tunnels."
"Will you go on one of those underground trains if they ever get one finished?" The constable shook his head. "I keep imagining being in the pitch black, moving at a frightening speed, surrounded by soot and sparks. Not to mention running out of air."
"I would try one," the inspector admitted, "but not for the first few weeks. They claim they've figured a way to pump the smoke into big tanks of water that they carry with them."
The constable sat up. "Really?"
"True. When they get to a station, the smoke is released into the air. And they also have small tanks of gas on the roof of each carriage, to provide a gas light for that carriage."
The constable shook his head. "I'd like to try that. But," he added, "how will they get air for the passengers?"
"There are ventilation shafts coming to the surface. And, if part of the route is long the train comes to the surface then goes back down again. Sometimes it comes up within a building which has been expropriated and hollowed out for that purpose. Sort of like porpoises coming up for air."
"And people will be brave enough to ride on one of those?" The constable shook his head. "I was scared silly first time I took a train."
"As was I," McFergus admitted. "But if you've tried getting through the streets of London, you're apt to find them more dangerous from the horses and people jammed together and the pickpockets everywhere."
"Caught Fagin yet?"
"Not yet, but he's bound to make a slip someday. And the force is still expanding control into parts of the town we used to go into only in groups."
"How was the Big Stink? We heard about that one even here."
"Pretty bad," the inspector admitted, and Amy nodded in agreement. A couple of years before, the human sewage had become too much for the cities creeks and rivers, and the smell had even forced the closing of parliament. Most people were to poor to flee the city, and so had no choice but to walk around with perfume-soaked cloths
over their noses. "They've very much accelerated the digging of underground sewage drains, to try to get the sewage into the Thames as quickly as they can. Do they still ship a lot of the human waste out to the farms around here?"
"Not so much," Bowe said. "Our farmers have been offered more than they can use for a couple of years already. London's just going to have to put more into the Thames. That'll be interesting if you get a high tide and a good east wind. What went down may well just come back up. They'll have to take their drinking water from further upstream in the Thames."
"We're getting some pumped in by pipe from outside the city," McFergus noted. "Those who can afford it don't have to use the water vendors or the wells. There may be a connection, but the rate of cholera is down.”
"More underground digging," the constable noted.
"It never stops."
There was a long pause. "And what did you want with Miss Boyle, if I may ask?"
"You may," McFergus said. He paused to light his own pipe, after changing his mind and getting permission from the constable. “Do you remember the death of Jacob Marley?”
Bowe shook his head.
“A rich and old businessman. Seems to have fallen down his stairs seven years ago. Coroner said it was an accident.”
“Doesn’t sound familiar, but I wouldn’t have paid attention; I was just a beat copper at the time.” He blew a large cloud of smoke. “Did you have any reason to doubt the coroner?” He looked McFergus in the eye; the two men might have been on different levels once, but things had changed since then.
McFergus nodded. “I got a tip from a snitch, a lad running with pickpockets, that Marley had been murdered.”
“You told this to Superintendent Bannim, of course?”
A hesitation. McFergus looked at Amy.
“You let the young man go.” Bowe looked serious for a moment, then laughed. “I guess you didn’t have any choice there, not once you’d let the kid go.” He puffed some more, then lit another cigarette. “You know, if you were to work in Altham Grange….” He hesitated, and McFergus felt he was about to be lectured about proper protocol. Then the constable went on. “If you did, that would be an appropriate action to take in most cases. If you’re a hard man, you’ll soon have every ploughboy for miles in jail after a night at the public house, and most of the landed gentry after your hide. A lot of diplomacy is needed here.”
“McFergus nodded. “I grew up an a small Scottish village, and spend a few years as a gamekeeper.”
“Then you know. And what about Miss Boyle?”
“A housekeeper at the time of Marley’s death. Did his rooms in the afternoon.”
“You suspect her?”
“Not in the slightest,” McFergus said, although both men knew that, in a case like this, the list of suspects was never completely closed. “She doesn’t seem to have had motive or have acquired any material advantage after his death.”
“You’ve been tactful here. I’ve heard you were bringing news of her brother.”
“I didn’t want to get her in trouble.”
“Wise,” Bowe said. “I’ll keep up that story.” He looked out the window. “But I do get the feeling that Miss Boyle would be just as happy to go back to London.” He looked at Ian and Amy McFergus. “Nothing I’ve heard; just a sense. It happens sometimes, particularly to servants who’ve seen the city.”
McFergus nodded. He knew the upper classes usually had a city home, and always took some of their servants with them to say for a few weeks every year. “The servants get to like the dirt, the smell, and the poor food?”
“They see it as freedom,” Bowe said. “Even in an apartment they have to share with rats, they at least work a few hours less a week, and if they want to talk to a young man, or visit a theatre there’s nobody to stop them.”
“Sounds better when one is young.”
“It does.” Both men filled the room with smoke. Both men scratched their moustaches. “But there’s freedom and there’s duty,” the constable said.
“Are people not free to go where they want in this kingdom?”
“If there were no constraints,” Bowe said, “there would be no need for the police. Or the churches. We remind people of their duties. To the Queen, to their country, to their church, and to their society.”
“Or it’s off to America,” McFergus suggested.
Bowe shook his head. “America is sorting itself into the same pattern that humanity has always lived in. Sooner or later the rich will own it all. Money buys freedom, and the rich Americans gather money faster than the poor. They call themselves free, but we’ve banned slavery, and they haven’t. I wouldn’t go to America. That slavery issue’s going to come to a head sooner or later in spite of Mr. Lincoln. Probably sooner.”
“And those rich will command the poor? The very churches will be divided by pew there, too?”
“It was always thus, since the beginning. And it’s made Britain the most powerful country in the world. It will be that way, I suppose, as long as each Englishman remembers to put duty before a frivolous freedom.”
McFergus shrugged, glad that Amy wasn’t saying anything. “The French seemed to be doing well for a bit.”
“Not for long. They beheaded their king, and now they’re poor and run by a bad emperor.”
“Nominally a democracy.”
Bowe laughed. “The French emperor has far more power than Queen Victoria, and the total opposition in their parliament is five confused men. Five.” He looked out the door. “After a bit of fun with equality, the old order asserts itself. The nobles are supplemented by capitalist barons and the poor are still poor.”
McFergus decided not to mention Karl Marx.
“I can see why people, are running off to America or turning to communism,” the constable added. He waved out the window. “But things are improving for the lower classes. The working hours have lessened and parliament has steadily raised the age at which a child can start working. That may be better for the children, or not, depending on how desperate their parents are for money to feed them.”
“Does the improvement in factory conditions affect the Grange?”
“It does.” The constable watched as a group of farm boys laughed their way past the window. “It makes the old gentry treat their help a bit better. Not much, of course, but a bit.”
“Even here?” Amy asked.
The constable grinned. “It might, but another rumour says the Squire’s youngest son has in interest in your Miss Boyle, and that’s going to stir up trouble at the manse. The other servants don’t take well to that sort of thing, no matter how common it’s been in older times.”
“She didn’t mention that,” Amy fibbed.
“It’s not something one talks about, but I think her situation is about to change. She’s not in an enviable position, except that, with her last parent dead now, she’s freer than most. You might see her in the city, or at a factory eventually.”
“Or?” Amy asked. McFergus thought his wife was becoming braver; she’d have listened without comment in the days when her husband still worked for the force.
Bowe puffed out clouds of smoke. “Or run off to Canada or the United States with the squire’s youngest son. With a small remittance from his parents, they might do well there.” He paused. “It happens.” The constable stood up. “I thank you for telling me about this.” He shook McFergus’s hand, and said, “Did you know Mr, Bill Sikes got off the train that came here after yours?”
“What?”
“He did. He walked around town half an hour, then caught the next train back towards London. Is he of concern?”
McFergus shrugged. “Not that I know of.”
“Well, we both know enough of him to know he needs watching.” Constable Bowe led them to the station-house door, put on his hat, tipped it to Amy, and watched them leave.
“Now what?” Amy asked her husband.
McFergus smiled. “Back to the Big Smoke, I guess.”
<
br /> On the way back to London, Amy was silent, watching the landscape go by under a cloudy British winter sky. A few guardsmen from a military regiment were singing noisily in the train car. McFergus turned to his wife. “Interesting, isn’t it?”
“I’m worried about you. Do you think you’re stirring something up?”
He smiled. “But at least I’ve got something to do.” Then, seeing her look of concern, said, “I’ll be careful; I know my way around the streets.”
“I hope so,” Amy said. “I do hope so.”
It took them an hour to walk back home from the station; Amy insisted on walking, in order to save money, although Ian knew of the extra time she’d have to spend cleaning the clothes. It didn’t take him more than a few minutes to realize they were being followed by a couple of boys. He didn’t mention it to his wife, since the followers kept their distance.
Bumping people and dodging horses, they stopped only for a few minutes to watch Dwan, the conjurer, confuse two out-of-towners and a sceptical group of locals by making a small bird appear from his sleeve. Then Dwan went into his medicine-man routine, and sold someone a bottle of something guaranteed to make anyone feel ten years younger, and Amy urged her husband on.
Ian pointed out something new to London, a public toilet, but Amy just said, “Tuppence for the toilet and tuppence to wash you hands after. Robbery.”
Ian could see that most of the locals felt the same, and there were few customers. I hear they have some of that toilet paper in those toilets.”
Amy snorted. “Wiping ones bottom with special paper. What next?”
That night, in bed together, with their feet on bricks that had been warmed by the fire and wrapped in cloths, Amy asked her husband if he’d been satisfied with the day.
He thought about it, then said, “Yes. I think I’ve eliminated a suspect.”
“You don’t see her killing Mr. Marley?”
“She gained nothing from it.”
“And not enough rancour to do it for vengeance for some action of his?”
“Did you think she was angry at him?” McFergus scratched at a flea.
“No,” Amy said, “I do not think she disliked him.” A long silence followed. “Did you like the village?”
“I am without illusions about such places.”
“The air seemed nicer.”
“They are building factories.” He paused. “Do you think the people seemed happier?”
“They seemed cleaner and healthier.”
“But not happier. In a village, everyone judges you, constantly. It is a jury you cannot escape.”
“But they don’t hang you for those judgements.”
Ian put his arm around his wife. “That’s true. Yes, I could live in a village again, as long as it weren’t the one I grew up in. And as long as I could get away from time to time.”
“They have trains, now. An hour to London.
“Let me think about it,” the ex-inspector said. And he did, long after Amy was snoring by his side and the brick had gone cold. His last thought though, was, Scrooge. Christmas eve. I have three days left.
***