Ann Granger (32 page)

When he saw his protests weren’t accepted, Roche proposed that instead of gaoling her until she came to trial, he should stand surety for her, so avoiding incarceration.

This suggestion was turned down on practical grounds. She couldn’t be left at Shore House with only Miss Phoebe to watch over her. Roche himself couldn’t remain at Shore House because of his business commitments. Nor could she be taken to London and lodged with him in Chelsea, because Lucy was there now. To force Lucy, who had been so wronged by Christina Roche, to live under the same roof was out of the question. The chief constable intervened. It was agreed that until her trial Miss Roche would be lodged with the senior warder in his home within the grounds of the prison. Thus she would be kept apart from common criminals of the female variety. There would be costs involved, of course, but Charles Roche would meet those.

He had to be satisfied with this arrangement, and the chief warder and his wife were no doubt very satisified indeed. For Miss Roche’s three badly cooked meals a day and bed with grubby linen they would be well recompensed.

Lizzie had already escorted Lucy Craven back to London. Dr Lefebre had also returned, to his private madhouse and medical practice, and was keeping well out of our way. To my mind, he had some explaining to do.

With Dunn’s support, I laid the details of the affair before the chief commissioner of police. With his approval, we now took ourselves off to a magistrate to obtain a warrant allowing Mr Charles Roche to take custody of a female infant, legally called Louisa Craven but present name unknown, who had probably been delivered into the care of the parish of Whitechapel in April that year by a man named Jethro Brennan. As for Roche, he was so anxious to make amends in some way for his responsibility for setting in train the whole wretched business that he was now in a fever of impatience to find the child.

I thought it well to take Sergeant Morris along before setting off to tackle parish officials. Although I was about my duty, and Mr Roche had his warrant, to say nothing of having moral right on our side (as if that and the law always went together), a force of three carries its own argument.

The Whitechapel workhouse was then situated in the heart of Spitalfields in Vallance Road. We had sent word ahead that we were on our way, but to reach the place took a perilous journey by cab. I saw that for Charles Roche, plunging into the crowded streets of Whitechapel proved an alarming experience. Quite apart from the pressing concern that occupied him regarding the recovery of his niece’s child, he seemed at a loss to comprehend his surroundings, although not far from here his own ancestors had first set up in the silk business. I knew that there were still silk weavers here among the crowded tenements, but their output was a mere fraction of what it had been now that manufacture had moved to the great factories of the north.

In the days of John Roche, whose portrait hung at Shore House in a place of pride, Whitechapel had been respectable and prosperous, full of those industrious Huguenots. Now I think there can be few districts in London more crowded and insalubrious and certainly none so motley. Whitechapel is a receptacle into which pour people from all corners of Europe and, indeed, beyond. The houses are crammed with as many families as can draw breath in their fetid interiors. During our visit we heard a veritable Babel of tongues spoken around us. The shops offered unfamiliar foodstuffs for sale, much to the horror of Sergeant Morris whose own tastes run to nothing more exotic than jellied eels. Pawnbrokers’ establishments abounded. Careful fingers picked over second-hand clothing and oddments of pots and pans spread out on barrows in the street.

We saw several of the area’s sizeable Jewish population, many of the men easily identifiable in their kaftans and with their ringlets dangling from beneath their black hats. I knew this community to be for the greater part industrious and law abiding, ‘keeping themselves to themselves’ as the saying goes. Not so many of the others we encountered or who brushed against us accidentally or on purpose. Whitechapel is a notorious haunt of petty criminals and prostitutes. All spilled out into the streets dodging between handcarts and drays and generally impeding the traffic; or thronged the pavements pushing and shoving. We could hear our cabbie shouting and swearing.

We were received by the poor law officer and a gentleman who represented the board of guardians of the workhouse. The last named had been hastily brought from his place of business and was none too pleased about the fact. He begged us to be brisk about our errand. Time, he informed us, was money.

To discuss that business we were led to a room where we established ourselves, once the poor law officer had evicted the slovenly female who had been mopping the floor. She departed with her bucket of dirty water leaving behind an unpleasant odour and air of dampness and depression.

‘I understand the board has responsibility for orphaned or abandoned children who have come upon the parish,’ I began as we seated ourselves in a row on one side of the long table. The two parish representatives took seats on the other side facing us.

‘They do, sir, or Mr Stoner should not be here!’ snapped the poor law officer. ‘In the first place the matter comes before me, and I decide what should be done. I declare it a pauper. In the matter of a very small parentless infant, naturally it cannot be taken into the workhouse itself. Other arrangements have to be made for it but it is still on the list of paupers and the board of governors count it among their charges. May I ask the reason for your interest?’

The speaker went by the name of Potter. He was a spindly fellow who might have been any age but I judged about fifty. His high bulging forehead was crowned by a scattering of faded red hair and his complexion was of that whiteness which sometimes accompanies such hair colour. His pinched expression suggested a man who lived by the rule book. His colleague, Mr Stoner, was in contrast plump and hoarse of breath with a red complexion and untidy linen. Clearly neither was pleased to see us. They shared an air of wariness.

There was, in addition, a faint odour of brandy about Potter, which he endeavoured to disguise by constantly popping into his mouth some pastilles giving off a smell of violets. His linen was grubby. Brandy, violets and sweat-stained clothing do not make for good company. Stoner had taken out his snuffbox and was tapping out a pinch on the back of his hand. I hoped we would not need to spend longer with them than we needed to complete our business with all speed.

‘I suffer from a weak stomach,’ Potter informed us, indicating his box of violet cachous.

‘Indeed?’ I replied.

Charles Roche, who had been looking around him with increasing dismay, asked, ‘Can’t we get to the matter swiftly?’

Potter agreed. He made a steeple of his fingers with his dirty nails at the tip. ‘Well, gentlemen, what is this matter that brings the Metropolitan Police to see me?’ (I had shown him my warrant card on our first arriving.) ‘And plain clothes, too?’ he went on. His mouth twisted in what might have been intended to be a smile but only succeeded in giving the impression of a nervous tic. ‘All is in order here,’ he added with a certain belligerence creeping into his voice.

‘Good,’ I told him briskly. ‘Then there should be no particular problem presented by our errand. We’re seeking a female infant who was given into parish keeping last April. The child was then very young, practically a newborn.’

Stoner sniffed up his pinch of snuff and sneezed into a large red-spotted handkerchief. His small eyes, fragments of granite sunken in his puffed face, fixed their gaze on us without expression.

Mr Potter pursed his thin lips and looked at us more speculatively. ‘May I ask your interest in this child?’

‘Certainly,’ I said. ‘We have reason to believe the infant was abducted from her mother, her death falsely recorded, and that she was brought by her abductor to London and handed over to you by a man named Jethro or Jed Brennan, a rat-catcher by trade, who was normally resident in Whitechapel when not tramping about the countryside.’

The officials exchanged glances and took their time thinking about my words, both frowning all the while.

‘You are certain of this?’ Potter asked at last. ‘The story seems, if you will excuse me, extraordinary.’

‘It is, but it is true.’

Stoner cleared his throat. ‘And if you should discover this child, with our help, what do you propose to do?’

‘Remove her from parish care and return her to her family. This gentleman is Mr Charles Roche and the child’s great-uncle. The whereabouts of the infant’s father is not currently known. He went away on some family business to China and to all intents and purposes became a resident of that country for the time being. There has since been reason to believe he has left the Far East, but no proof he is in this country. The mother, who is but seventeen years of age, is at present in London and resident in Mr Roche’s house. A magistrate has recognised Mr Charles Roche to be acting head of the family in these circumstances. I have here his warrant requiring you to surrender the infant into Charles Roche’s custody. Sergeant Morris and I are here to see all is done properly.’

Mr Roche, on cue, produced his magistrate’s letter and laid it with some ceremony on the rickety table serving as the official’s desk. Mr Potter unfolded the letter and slowly and carefully read it at least twice. He passed it to his colleague Stoner who did the same and passed it back again. Potter then spread it out flat on the surface of the table and placed his clasped hands on it. Perhaps he thought we might snatch it away again.

‘There can be no question that any official of this parish will be charged with any wrongdoing?’ His voice was pitched between a question and a statement and veered almost comically between defensiveness and truculence. ‘The parish can only accept an infant in good faith. We try to make sure, of course, that there is no one else who can take financial responsibility for the child. We have to be aware that we are answerable to the ratepayers. Indeed, in this matter, there will have to be an inquiry as to why a child with family willing and able to care for it ever came upon parish resources in the first place.’

‘That matter,’ I interrupted, ‘forms part of criminal investigations taking place as we speak.’

Whatever these gentlemen from the parish board wanted, it was not to be drawn into any investigation into criminal matters.

Mr Stoner spoke up, scattering snuff upon his waistcoat as he did and brushing it away in an automatic gesture. ‘As my colleague was saying, we always try to establish if there is any relative who can contribute financially to the support of orphaned children. But it is very difficult to get them to pay up, even if we find anyone. The matter is awkward. If we were to ask too many questions…’ He wheezed and coughed into his handkerchief. ‘The babies would simply be abandoned on our doorstep. That happens from time to time, does it not, Mr Potter?’

‘It does,’ agreed his colleague. ‘The taking in of such abandoned infants causes endless trouble for the board of guardians. There is nothing with them to give us any help, no birth or baptismal certificate, nothing. Mostly such infants are born out of wedlock. If names are given, we know full well that they are likely to be false. The officer receiving the child must make an instant judgement. He cannot be held responsible for any – any mishap. Do you have any idea how many cases come before the board in a parish like Whitechapel? We are overwhelmed, gentlemen, overwhelmed! We do our very best.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Charles Roche impatiently. ‘We just want to trace the child!’

But Mr Potter still made no move. ‘I can look the child up in our records. We keep full written records of the destitute poor who come upon our charge. The system is a model of efficiency. I should, however, warn you that newborn infants who come into our keeping do not always, despite all possible good care being taken and their wanting for no necessity, survive.’

My heart sank and I saw consternation on Charles Roche’s face. Were we to discover that Lucy’s baby had, after all this, died?

Potter rose and went to the far wall where a shelf was stacked with ledgers under a coating of grey powder. The skivvy with the mop and pail apparently did not include dusting in her duties. Potter, muttering, ‘
April
…’ to himself, ran his finger along a row and finally selected a thick tome. He brought it back to the table and opened it, turning the pages with the agonising slowness with which he seemed determined to do everything.

‘Ah…’ The forefinger he had been running down the page came to a rest. I had been watching its progress in a fever of impatience, and found myself irritated anew by the dirt accrued beneath his fingernail. ‘The infant you speak of would seem to be one entered as an orphan pauper, number twenty-seven taken in during this present
annum.
She was handed over by a man giving his name as Brennan and occupation as itinerant rat-catcher who claimed she had been found abandoned in the stairwell of the house where he lodged. Questioned closely he stuck to this story. The house was located in Flynn Court. Lacking any other identity, the official who took her in marked her name down as Flynn, therefore, and she was given the first name of Mary. Her age at that time was put by a medical man, employed by the parish to attend sick paupers in the workhouse, as about three weeks. His opinion was that the birth had been attended by a competent midwife or professional doctor. Her health was sound with no sign of malformation or disease. “Deceased” has not since been added to the record.’

All three of his audience heaved sighs of relief. Morris muttered, ‘Thank Gawd for that!’

‘Where is the baby now?’ I demanded.

‘The procedure with unweaned infants is that they are given into the care of one of the excellent women on our approved list who make a business of taking in such infants and caring for them on behalf of the parish, and at a suitable remuneration, until they are old enough to be returned to us. The babies are taken into the women’s own homes and hand-reared.’