Children of the Tide. Jon Redfern
laundry rooms. It has a latch, but only on the inside. On the outside, it is without hardware.”
“I wonder why?” queried Endersby. “Certainly to keep outsiders from entering via the yard. Dare we assume, Sergeant, that this door was the exit afforded to the culprit?”
“Possibly, sir, since the young child was found close to it by the workhouse gate.”
“Ah, indeed. The waif named Catherine. Do we know anything about her?”
“Not as yet, sir.”
“But, Caldwell, why was this particular child out in the cold? I wonder if there are many who try to escape from this dreadful place?”
“If I may suggest, sir, a child wishing to escape would surely have run far away from the workhouse gate.”
“Most surely, Sergeant.”
Endersby blinked his eyes; on raising his head only a fraction, he dispelled a number of swirling questions and returned his attention to the present situation.
“And the scrub boy, Sergeant?”
“Sir?”
“Did you question him at all?”
“Most efficiently, sir. He said he was asleep upstairs with the other boys. Seems the male wards and the family wing are all locked at night, so no passage between them and this female ward is possible until the morning when the masters unlock the doors and herd the inmates to their breakfasts.”
“Curious,” replied Endersby. “But with all these locked doors, how did the culprit move so freely? It would depend on where he entered, surely. Caldwell, I have a sense that this person knows well the layout of a workhouse. Knows of locked passages and open ones. How else could such a brutal act be committed if the man were stumbling about getting lost or at worst, being caught by a master and thrashed?”
“I shall keep this in mind, sir. The scrub lad also told me how difficult it was to mop up the coal dust.”
“Coal dust! Do we know where the coal chute is for the kitchen?”
“In the cellar, sir.”
“Kindly investigate it. See if there are signs of a forced entry, if the chute itself looks brushed or mussed in any way.”
“Mussed, sir?”
“The victim was heavily smudged with coal dust. We could presume it was a coal carrier who decided to end Miss Matty’s life. Or, in fact, we might discover that the culprit, whose profession remains, as yet, unknown to us, entered the building via the chute.”
“Indeed, sir.”
“By the by, find out the name of the coal carrier. Where is the chap? In the meantime, I will go to the young girls before me in the ward. Perhaps one of them can enlighten me. If we have some luck, perhaps one can remember witnessing the villain — although fear of the dark can create monsters.”
Endersby stood alone for a moment, his ears alert to the murmuring of the young girls in the ward. What human flotsam stood before him. The ever-present spectre of young Robert Endersby, his only child, now dead these twelve years, drifted into his conscious mind. Not unlike one or two of the children in this ward, his son Robert had been a weak three-year-old, eventually felled by a lung infection. Seeing so many young girls before him, Endersby felt pity, as each of them might be dead within a week or a month. “For their own safety,” Endersby grumbled, thinking back to a statement once made by a politician who supported workhouses for the poor as a way of teaching them to become “self-sufficient.”
Honing his mind as best he could, Inspector Endersby now looked with clear eyes. By each bed stood a young girl dressed in blue muslin. Heads lowered in obedience, bare feet, and a smell of sickly skin engulfed the space. When he approached one girl, she raised her face to him and showed a set of drawn features, the eyes ringed with mauve circles.
“Good morning, girls. My name is Endersby. I am a policeman.”
A muted round of “g’morning” greeted the inspector’s introduction. He asked the children to approach him and stand in a circle. The girls moved quickly, some stumbling. “Have you had your porridge, yet?” he asked. A cry of “No, sir,” flew up to the high ceiling. “Then I shall be quick,” Endersby said, looking into the homely faces of the unfortunate of his own society. Could any one of these young females tell a story recounting the events of last night? Would they be reliable as witnesses? Given the hardship in their young lives, how well could these storm-tossed children reveal the differences between phantom and flesh? With a gracious severity, he asked the oldest girl to step forward.
“Now, why don’t you tell me a story? You tell stories to each other, don’t you?”
A few of the girls blushed and responded in the affirmative.
“Blest, sir,” the girl said excitedly. Endersby saw spirit in her; he looked at the other girls who held their eyes on her as if they were her acolytes. All stories have a beginning so the inspector asked her to begin. The girl swept her eyes around the circle of her ward sisters. She began with ghosts and goblins. “Ah, wondrous,” Endersby said. Then he prompted her to tell a true story. “Go back in time,” he suggested. “Imagine yourself in the dark last night, in this very room.” The others began to shuffle. One child coughed. The girl began. “Last night, oh, last night.” Endersby sat forward. The girl told of a dark figure moving down the beds holding a candle and whispering.
“Indeed,” replied the inspector. “Why do you think he went about so?”
“Nothin’, sir … only wos ’ere to look … passed close by me, he did.”
“Did you see his face, by chance?”
“I dustn’t ’cause he was stinking so.” The others giggled. The girl blushed and pulled nervously at her sleeve. Endersby gave her a nod as if to say, “good work,” and the child came close again, cupping her chilly hand around Endersby’s ear.
“Ah,” replied Endersby, exaggerating his astonishment at her whispered words. “Are you certain?” The girl pressed closer.
“A broken limb, you say. A limp,” said Endersby.
The girl stepped back, proudly smiling. “Well done,” Endersby said.
Endersby waited a little longer, gazing in the faces of those around him. No other child stepped forward. Catching a nod from Matron Agnes at the door, he told the girls their porridge was waiting, to which announcement they shouted like a horde of fun-seekers at a seaside fair and dashed off to the eating hall. Pushing through the rush came Sergeant Caldwell, his notebook held in his right hand. Endersby stood up from the bed where he had relaxed his painful foot. Yet another gouty pang made him consider the details he had just heard.
“Sir,” said the sergeant next, “best, I reckon, if you walk around with me to see what I have seen.”
“…More things in heaven and earth?” quipped Endersby.
“Sir?”
“Mr. Hamlet, Sergeant. He has been stuck in my mind these last few days. At Covent Garden Theatre this past Friday I had the delight to see Mr. Macready play the lead role. Walk on. Let us see together. A few details were gained from talking to the little girls. One said she saw a limping man looking at the faces of the children.”
“And yet, sir, the child was left behind.”
“The wrong child, may we surmise?”
Chapter Three
Clues in the Coal
Caldwell led his superior down two staircases, through a kitchen, and into a cramped