Authors: Ann Featherstone
Amidst the
lingering tobacco smoke from the previous night and the sweet and sour smell of
spilt ale from but half an hour ago, Mr Coroner began in the time-honoured way,
intoning the sombre phrases - 'to inquire in this manner', 'to know where the
person was slain', 'if they can speak or have any discretion', like a
clergyman, reading out the verses and responses. Then he stopped and looked
about the room.
'One of our
duties this morning, gentlemen, is to try, if we are able, to identify this child.
No one has yet come forward to claim her. She has no name. She may or may not
be from this district.'
His
pale fish-eyes ranged about the room.
'If anyone here
has information which might lead to an identification at any time during these
proceedings, I must remind you that it is your duty to lay that information
before the court.'
The silence
continued, broken only by the creak of working boots and a phlegmy cough.
'Very well,'
said Mr Coroner quietly, 'then we will proceed.'
The foreman gave
summary information - the body was discovered at such and such a time on such
and such a day and immediately the police were summoned.
'Let us hear
from the officer, then. Stand up, address the court, speak slowly and clearly.
Don't omit anything. Give it all.'
The policeman
stood up, a young man with a fresh face and tidy manners, holding his hat hard
under his arm and balancing a scrap of paper in a trembling hand.
'I was called to
the railway diggings at the back of Marlpit-road. The labourers had come to their
work and discovered a child's body thrown in the tunnel about thirty yards
along. It was wrapped up in an old rug. One of the labourers, stopping for his
dinner and seeing the rug, said he thought he would take it to sit upon rather
than the wet earth. The child's body dropped out of the rug as he picked it up
and he had a start.'
'Is
that man here?' enquired Mr Coroner.
A
large man, with a dirty face, hesitantly held up his hand.
'Aye.
Here, master. Sir. Yer 'onner.'
A
cazzelty.
'Sit
and wait. Now, constable, continue.'
The young
policeman looked around the room, swallowed hard and began again.
'Well, sir, I
was taken to the mouth of the tunnel and given a lamp and I made my way along.'
'And where is
this tunnel? Where does it lead?' asked the Coroner. The policeman was
nonplussed, and so was everyone in the room, including the clean-faced workman
who shook his head when asked. The inquiry went back and around and out of the
door into the yard a couple of times before it brought back with it another
cazzelty, who had the bearing of 'one in charge' and, with his hat in his hands
and refusing to blink (as if he were incapable of blinking and speaking at the
same time), he informed Mr Coroner that the tunnel 'was for the railway, sir,
leading up as far as Tiber-street and down as far as the Medway-road, and
cutting under "thorinfares" both major and minor, sir.' Mr Coroner
was satisfied, as was the assembly, who nodded and murmured, and someone patted
him on the shoulder and said, 'Well spoken, Charlie.'
'Now then,
continue,' said Mr Coroner, and the young policeman, who seemed to be hoping
that his part in the proceedings had finished, was forced to get to his feet
again and resume. 'Well, sir, I found the - the body - and it was just as they
had described it. Wrapped up in a piece of old carpet, and looking more like a
roll of carpet than a body, if you get my meaning, sir. It was up against the
wall, lying fiat.'
'Had there been
any attempt to hide it? Perhaps to bury it under stones or earth?'
'No,
sir. It was just a-lying there.'
'What
did you do when you came upon it?'
The young
policeman swallowed hard. 'Well, sir, I stooped and unwrapped it—'
'Was
it secured? By cord or rope?'
'No,
sir, it wasn't. The - body - flopped out as I unwrapped it.'
'Flopped
out?'
'Yes,
sir. That's what it did. And rolled upon the earth.'
'I see,' said Mr
Coroner, making notes. 'And was the piece of carpet collected from the tunnel
when the deceased was removed?'
The young policeman,
increasingly pale now and anxious, didn't know. Perhaps it was left behind, he
said. He hadn't seen it. Mr Coroner frowned and expressed the opinion that
though they had very many admirable qualities, the police were sometimes
lacking that attention to detail which might assist the judiciary in the
administration of their duties. And also in the catching of the perpetrators of
the crime. Had it not occurred to anyone that the carpet in which the body was
wrapped was as important as any of the evidence?
The young
policeman looked shamefaced and said in a quiet voice that he was most sorry,
but he wanted to remove the child from that awful place and he couldn't think
of anything else. It was a response which met with general approval, and there
were nods at him and at the Coroner, who was then more inclined to let the
matter go and move on from the business of the 'where' and 'when' to the
'how'. Here the medical man was summoned, Skinner, the police doctor, who was
irritable and in a hurry to have it over with for he had 'four suicides and a
public hanging to deal with before I can hope to eat my dinner tonight'.
The medical
questioning necessitated the jury, followed by the other spectators, trooping
out into the yard 'to view the deceased'. If there was a little crush and a few
remonstrations of'Mind yer elbow!' and 'Watch it! My plates!', it was all done
quietly.
Skinner cleared
his throat. 'The child is female, eight years of age, of fair general health.
Not overly underweight.'
He drew back the
white cloth - the landlady's third-best tablecloth - and looked around the
assembly of crusty, tired faces and then, in an unusually hushed and gentle
voice, said, 'Mr Coroner, I say this because there are no females within
earshot, and what I have to say is not for female ears. This child was violated
and strangled. I cannot tell which, at this stage, was the cause of death.'
There was
silence, broken only by the squealing of pigs in the nearby abattoir.
'I examined the
body earlier, as you requested, and the evidence seems pretty clear to me. I
will, of course, need to perform a more extensive examination at the mortuary,
but I cannot imagine that my findings will alter materially.'
Mr Coroner
nodded sagely, and the jurors, with serious faces and some licking their lips
nervously, followed his lead.
There are,' said
the doctor, 'signs of a struggle, pathetic though that probably was. She has,
for example, broken fingernails.' He frowned. 'I would hesitate to suggest that
this injury was sustained in an attempt to fight off an attacker. It is
difficult to be precise. One might arrest a suspect on the evidence of claw
marks, perhaps to the face or arm, but a conviction on those alone would be
difficult to secure. Let us say that the victim struggled in an effort to
escape the outrage and in that struggle sustained some damage to the phalangeal
extremities.'
There was an
angry murmur and shaking of heads, and an almost wholesale attempt to retreat
within the Two Spies, for we all knew the child was dead and how, and anything
else which the doctor was moved to offer seemed unnecessary. But Mr Coroner
would brook no retreat and waved Mr Skinner on.
'The extent of
the injuries, gentlemen, both - er - within - and - er - without, are
consistent with that of a mature individual applying - er - considerable
force.' He hesitated. 'Do I need to elaborate, Mr Coroner? This will all be
detailed in my report. It seems superfluous in the present circumstances ...
Very well. Suffice it to say that the deceased met her death in a violent
manner due to substantial internal injuries which were inflicted by an as yet
unknown assailant. And, I would hazard, against her will.'
Again we tried
to put the horror behind us, and again we were called back. 'One last thing,'
said Mr Skinner, 'which I believe should be drawn to the jury's attention. The
manner of strangulation. The child was young, small, not at all robust. A grown
man would have no difficulty in extinguishing life with his hands. And yet the
mark upon the throat suggests to me - and I confess I have only ever seen it
upon adult victims - the application of a garrotte.'
A red
handkerchief flashed before my eyes like a curse. We filed into the parlour and
I took my seat next to a pale man, perhaps a wharf-man or a street-porter. He
turned his hat in his hands for some minutes and then, along with others, could
be heard to swear, to the foreman and to anyone else who might care to listen,
that he could not endure any more of the doctor's medical talk, and that it was
enough to know what he knew without some jumped-up medico telling him in a hundred
different ways. Then the conversation turned to the manner of the child's death
and while the violation was sickening, they were most terribly angered by the
garrotting. It was a punishment from which women and children were exempt. It
was a vile and cowardly crime. There was talk, from the collection of lumpers
and haulers at the window, of calling up some assistance - there was no
shortage of volunteers - to 'find the devil what done it and do for him, well
and good'.
Mr Coroner
seemed to have some sympathy with us, for he allowed the company to speak out
their anger and threaten parliament and the 'upper ten' (for having caused it)
and the police (for not having prevented it). Then, in the hiatus and having
ordered his papers into piles and single sheets in front of him, Mr Coroner
cleared his throat and began again.
'Thank you,
Doctor Skinner, for that illuminating account. Gentlemen, I think we need
little occasion to debate the cause of death and, indeed, that subject is
beyond our resource at present. Yet there are still matters to be dealt with.
We have heard from the police and the medical profession. But we have not
heard a word from witnesses who might know the child. Who have seen her playing
in the street, perhaps, or walking to church with her parents. This child - a
pretty child, as yet unnamed and unclaimed - is a mystery. Surely someone has
missed her? Some mother has surely been searching the streets for her and enquiring
at hospitals and police stations?'
And so it went
on until the Coroner declared the business concluded, pronounced 'Unnatural
murder, by persons unknown' and the room emptied. I had not disclosed what I
knew. Had sat in a corner, listened and held my peace. But now that everyone
had left and I was alone with the doctor or the Coroner, perhaps now I could do
it. Not in front of a crowd of strangers, but in the quiet of the parlour or
the yard.
The doctor was
still there, lathering his hands vigorously in a bucket of water and talking to
a small party of clerks in rusty black, all eager to be gone, but too polite to
leave.
'A tragic case,'
he said. 'It's no secret that these young ones are sold for the purpose of
violating them, though one would hope that few come to grief in this manner.'
He shook his head. 'What mother could sell her child to this? I would give my
fortune to discover who did it and bring him to justice. And those who are
behind it. As would all decent men,' and he frowned and scrubbed his hands dry
on the landlady's towel.
Then
he drew back the cover and I looked upon the child's face for the first time.
Dark curls, matted now, and a begrimed face, the blue eyes half open, the mouth
fallen into a smile in that strange way the dead have of reminding us of life.
A sweet face, limbs still full and round, baby features made more childlike by
those cheap glass beads and ribbons with which poor mothers deck out their
child because it earns money.
I didn't know
her real name. It might have been The Little Wonder, Miss Topsy Truelove. She
might have been sister to Little Louisa Penny and Happy Rosy Banks, and cousin
to Sweet Carrie Honeydew and The Mother's Favourite Jenny Brighteye. There were
so many. The supply was endless. Daughters of poor families, with a grain of
talent and a winning smile and, if they are lucky, join the ranks of a
children's ballet. Those less fortunate haunt low concert rooms and travelling
shows, little mites with bare arms and thin dresses, dragged about this city to
find one night's work in the pleasure gardens and two at the gaff so that the
family can eat. This child was perhaps the only one keeping the rent-man at bay
and her father in the gin-shop.
I must have been
staring at the child's face, for the doctor touched my arm and the clerks drew
closer.
'Do you know
her? It is your duty, man, to say if you do, and a crime if you don't say what
you know. Withholding evidence, it's called, and the law will send you down if
you're discovered.'
He rolled down his
sleeves and a clerk held his coat for him. They bustled back into the parlour
and I saw him have a word in the ear of Mr Coroner, who looked hard in my direction,
and I think they were about to summon me, but their attention was drawn to the
dark-coated gentleman who had come into the room and was taking a glass with
the landlord. It was his horse and wagon drawn up in that tight little square
to fetch the child to the mortuary where the doctor would attend to her again.
She had been violated and killed in that cold and shabby place; she was bundled
into a scrap of mouldy carpet, filthy with the dirt of the street, had been
left in the cold and dark. She was stared at, not as in life, prancing and
singing and smiling, but lying cold and still on a table in the yard of a
tavern. And finally, she was to be rattled and tumbled about upon the back of a
cart and then laid upon a cold, hard bed.