Children of the Tide. Jon Redfern
enough, Inspector. She was a bitter woman.”
Nodding, he continued. “I see here, Matron, just under the jaw line and across the centre of the neck, a thin blue-black bruise dotted with orange-coloured specks. I think this is the result of a hanging.” The line of injury marked the skin like a blue cord. It did not extend far beyond the front surface of the neck. “So not a true noose,” Endersby concluded out loud.
“These specks are bits of metal rust,” he continued. Matron Agnes watched him pull out a paper envelope. With the tips of his thumb and forefinger he lifted off a number of the tiny scales of metal from the surface of the neck and placed them inside the envelope. Endersby deduced, tentatively, that the murderer had pressed a hand, encrusted with coal dust, across the victim’s face and strangled the woman with a tool of some kind. But what had been the prime motive? Revenge? Vicious pleasure?
“Inspector, there is one item I have set aside,” said Matron Agnes. From a drawer in the table she handed Endersby a six-inch piece of mouldy, coarse lace. “This cloth,” she explained, “I pulled from Matty’s mouth and throat.” Endersby examined the lace close to the candle. He turned it over in his hands. “But why lace?” he suddenly asked. “And why, indeed, compound the method of murder with such a cruel gesture?” Endersby raised his head to see Matron Agnes wipe tears from her eyes. “Most peculiar, Matron. I am indeed sorry,” the inspector said. He pulled out another envelope and placed the bit of lace inside. “The magistrate,” he said, “demands proof of any items found near or on the body.”
“Why has this happened?” Matron Agnes cried.
“I cannot say as yet what I believe,” Endersby answered. “Items speak of their own accord and can help form a picture, if you wish. I apply logic as best I can. I presuppose this is murder, and this lace, which you have most wisely guarded, is strong evidence of a merciless killer.”
The two stood for a moment in the gloom of the flickering candle before walking back upstairs.
“Have we finished, Inspector?”
“One last request, Matron. I would like to see Miss Matty’s room.”
As he stepped quickly down the stairs into the vast cellar of the workhouse, Sergeant Caldwell winced from his tooth pain. He popped two cloves into his mouth and settled them on his throbbing molar. He couldn’t help wondering about all the poor thin girls he’d seen huddling in the wards. What a horror to think a parent could abandon a child.
“Good morning, sir,” he said to the scrub boy.
The boy nodded his head.
“Take me around, boy, to all the doors in the cellar and then on the upper floor.”
“To check locks, sir?” the boy asked.
“Yes, lad, to see if and where the killer broke in.”
“You won’t find any, sir,” the boy said leading Sergeant Caldwell up a back staircase.
“Won’t find what?”
“No signs, sir. First thing I did before I scrubbed the hearth was to check doors. The intruder never come in here by them.” The boy pointed to a door leading to an upper room. The lock was still on and there was no sign of any forced entry. Throughout the walk the same situation occurred. The workhouse had been sealed tight. Sergeant Caldwell wondered if the boy had performed some mischief, but as he watched him he saw he was clever, quick, and obedient.
“You were born in here, lad?”
“In’ere? Two floors up in the women’s ward. Never set eyes on me mammy.”
The boy’s bright voice cut into Caldwell’s heart. He did not think of himself as sentimental. How had this lad become so strong? So used to a lonely life? After inspecting all the doors and entrances, Sergeant Caldwell made a few notes in his notebook.
“Now, lad,” Caldwell said, his voice more cheerful, “gather all the workers here. Lead them to the hearth room. Fast as you can, young boy. I have questions to ask!”
Chapter Two
Tales of Woe
Matron Agnes led Endersby into Miss Matty’s small room, its only furniture a simple bed and a cupboard with two drawers. The cupboard contained a cloak, a pair of shoes, and an outdoor bonnet. A meagre life, the inspector thought.
“Can you recall if any other woman or man complained against her?”
“The scullery maids liked to tease her a little. Such was their way. Matty never complained, nor did they. Perhaps they saw in each other a similar misery.”
“Or loneliness?” the inspector added.
“We are a place full of much loneliness, sir,” Matron Agnes replied, a melancholy in her words.
“Did Miss Matty have any friends or acquaintances outside of the workhouse? People she met or spoke about?”
“She rarely talked to me. Her acquaintances were few — if any — that I could perceive.”
Endersby thanked the matron. On his way down to the entrance of the workhouse he peeked into a ward full of destitute women with small babies. What sorrow pervades the morning light, he thought. What thin hands and thin bodies are arrayed on the rows of beds. Why does our time treat women so cruelly? Why was Miss Matty murdered? What kind of person would wish her dead? Endersby knew how fear and hatred in some people’s minds took time to grow. Like seeds, they lay dormant until a gesture, a cruel word, made them burst out of the heart and force the hand to take a life. But who had Miss Matty wronged?
On reaching the entrance hall, Endersby felt relieved to see Sergeant Caldwell standing by the hearth where the body had been found. Endersby hoped his sergeant had found a clue. A cook in a white apron, the sour haughty master, a tall, pinched-looking younger gentleman, and two other stern women were arranged in a wide circle about the sergeant. Closer to Caldwell stood two very haggard women.
“These are the scullery maids, sir,” Caldwell explained. The two reminded Inspector Endersby of the oyster-sellers he frequently visited in the dock streets near Limehouse: shabby in dress, smelling of dirty bare feet. “I tried to scream, I did,” said the first of the two. Endersby listened as the two interrupted each other with their tale of finding the body on the floor. “Did you notice anything in Miss Matty’s mouth when you found her?” Endersby asked. The two quickly glanced at each other: “Naught, sir, but her cheeks were fat out, like she had taken too much porridge from her bowl.”
“Was there anything lying on the floor? Other than the tipped chair?”
The two scullery maids shook their heads. Endersby thanked them and stepped aside to think for a moment. His gouty left foot started to pang. A bad omen, he thought, for he relied on his left foot to alert him to the swell of obscurity which often dogged an investigation. This morning he suffered a peculiar confusion from what seemed to be, so far, a murder with scant clues: the lace, the coal dust, the bruise and the bits of rusted metal. He looked at Sergeant Caldwell, who was finishing up the testimonies of the other workers. After they were dismissed, Caldwell gave a summary of his findings: the cook arrived at a later hour and was unaware of the killing; the masters had all been in bed, as had the two other matrons. None except the two scullery maids had acquaintance with Miss Matty. The two masters knew her by sight only. No sign of the coal carrier.
“No adult witnesses it seems, so far. And the doors and entrances, Sergeant?”
Mr. Caldwell grinned and spoke with clove on his breath. “Sir, the scrub boy took me around to the back and front entrances. Both showed no signs of forced entry from the outside. The locks were large and opened by a number of key turns. A villain, sir, would have