The Murders in Praed Street

The Murders in Praed Street

By John Rhode.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Part I: The Crimes
   1. I: The Street
   2. II: The Herbalist
   3. III: The Inquest
   4. IV: The Poisoned Pipe-Stem
   5. V: Inspector Whyland
   6. VI: A Middle-Aged Poet
   7. VII: The Black Sailor
   8. VIII: At No. 407, Praed Street
   9. IX: A Strange Affair
   10. X: At Scotland Yard
   11. XI: The Sixth Counter
   12. XII: A Hypodermic Needle
4. Part II: The Criminal
   1. XIII: Enter Dr. Priestley
   2. XIV: The Morlandson Trial
   3. XV: The Bone Counters
   4. XVI: Corfe Castle
   5. XVII: The Clay-Pit
   6. XVIII: The Avenger
   7. XIX: A Discovery
   8. XX: Mr. Ludgrove’s Invitation
   9. XXI: An Explanation
   10. XXII: The Death Chamber
   11. XXIII: The Will
5. Endnotes
6. Colophon
7. Uncopyright

Imprint

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Part I

The Crimes

I

The Street

Praed Street is not at any time one of London’s brighter thoroughfares. Certainly it ends upon a note of hope, terminating as it does on the fringe of the unquestioned respectability of Bayswater, but for the rest of its course it is frankly lamentable. Narrow, bordered by small and often furtive shops, above which the squalid looking upper parts are particularly uninviting, it can never have been designed as more than a humble annex of its more prosperous parent, the Edgware Road. And then, for no apparent reason, the Great Western Railway planted its terminus upon it, and Praed Street found itself called upon to become a main artery of traffic.

It seems to have done very little to adapt itself to its new role. Beyond an occasional grudging widening, it has left the unending streams of buses, of heavy railway lorries, of hurrying foot passengers, to shift for themselves as best they can. It almost seems as though Praed Street regarded Paddington Station as an intrusion, and those who throng to and from it as unwelcome strangers. It had its own interests long before the railway came⁠—one of the termini of the Grand Junction Canal lies within a few yards of its sombre limits. Praed Street watches with indifference the thronging crowds which pass along, and they in turn take little heed of the uninviting thoroughfare through which their journey leads them.

Not that these philosophic reflections occupied the mind of Mr. James Tovey, which was far too full of an acute sense of annoyance and discomfort to find room for any other sensations. Mr. Tovey was not an inhabitant of Praed Street, although he lived in its neighbourhood. There was nothing secretive about Mr. Tovey, you could see his name and occupation painted in bold letters over a shop in Lisson Grove; James Tovey, Fruit and Vegetable Merchant. He was, in fact, a greengrocer, and, years ago, when Mr. Tovey had originally employed a small legacy in the purchase of the business, the sign had read: Tovey, Greengrocer, etc. But it was Mr. Tovey’s proud boast that he always moved with the times, and since his neighbours, the butcher and the grocer, had respectively converted themselves into Meat Purveyors and Provision Dealers, he had abandoned the vulgar term of greengrocer for the more high-sounding appellation.

Sunday was a day of strict observance with Mr. Tovey, its presiding deity his own comfort. One can hardly blame him for this indulgence, since the rest of the week left him little leisure for repose. His habit was to rise before six, in order to drive the van to Covent Garden. The van, a secondhand Ford, was the subject of the ribald mirth of his acquaintances. Every nonessential part had long since fallen off, as an aged elm sheds its branches, and the essentials were held together by odd pieces of rope. But to any suggestion of the van’s imperfections, Mr. Tovey merely shrugged his shoulders. “ ’Tisn’t ’er looks as matters,” he would reply. “So long as she does ’er job she’ll do for me.” And perhaps this phrase, applied to things at large, was a complete summing up of Mr. Tovey’s philosophy.

He opened the shop as soon as he returned from Covent Garden, and kept it open, winter and summer, till a late hour. Lisson Grove shops late, and it was usually ten o’clock before Mr. Tovey could reckon to get his bit of supper. It was therefore natural that so strenuous a week should be rewarded by a relaxation on Sunday. It was his invariable habit to stay in bed till noon, inhaling the savoury smell of the Sunday joint roasting in the kitchen, and only to rise and put on his best suit when the clock struck that hour. The afternoon was usually devoted to the peaceful somnolence of repletion,