Cater Street Hangman

“You think the murderer wrote her that, Miss?”

“I don’t know, Millie, probably not. But we should let the police have it.”

“Yes, ma’am. But Mr. Maddock is busy unpacking the next cases of wine this afternoon, and the master said it had to be done straight away.”

“That’s all right, Millie. I’ll take it myself.”

“But, Miss Charlotte, you aren’t going out by yourself, are you?”

Charlotte stared at her for a moment. “No, Millie, you’ll have to come with me.”

“Me, Miss Charlotte?” She froze, her eyes wide.

“Yes, you, Millie. Go and get your coat on. Tell Mrs. Dunphy I need you to come with me on an urgent errand. Now go on.”

Three quarters of an hour later Millie was in the outer waiting room of the police station, and Charlotte was shown into Inspector Pitt’s small room to await his return. It was drab, functional, and a little dusty. There were three chairs, one of them on a swivel, a table with locked drawers in it, a rolltop desk, also locked, and a brown linoleum floor, worn patchy where feet had trodden from door to desk and back again.

She had been there for only ten minutes when the door opened and a sharp-nosed little man in overly smart clothes came in. His face dropped in surprise.

“’Allo, Miss! You sure you’re in the right place?”

“I believe so. I’m waiting for Mr. Pitt.”

He looked her up and down carefully. “You don’t look like a nose.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You don’t look like a nose.” He came in and closed the door behind him. “An informer, a spy for the crushers.”

“For whom?” she frowned, trying to understand him.

“The police! You did say you wanted to see Mr. Pitt?”

“Yes.”

He grinned suddenly, showing broken teeth.

“You a friend of his?”

“I have come on a matter of business which, forgive me for frankness, is not your concern.” She had no wish to be rude. He was a harmless enough little man, and apparently friendly.

“Business? You don’t look like you have business with the crushers.” He sat down on the chair opposite, still looking at her in amiable curiosity.

“Do you belong here?” she said doubtfully.

“Oh, yes,” he grinned. “I got business too.”

“Indeed?”

“Important,” he nodded, his eyes bright. “Do a lot for Mr. Pitt, I do. Don’t know how he’d manage without me.”

“I dare say he’d survive somehow,” Charlotte said with a smile.

He was unoffended.

“Ah, Miss, that’s ’cos you don’t know anything about it, begging your pardon.”

“About what?”

“About the workings, Miss: the way things is done. I’ll wager you don’t even know how to break a drum or to christen the stuff and fence it afterwards.”

Charlotte was completely lost but, in spite of herself, interested.

“No,” she admitted. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“Ah,” he settled himself more comfortably. “But you see I knows everything. Born to it. Born in the rookeries, I was. Grew up there. Mother died when I was about three, so they say. And I was very small. Lucky that-”

“Lucky? You mean someone took pity on you?”

He gave her a look of friendly contempt. “I mean they saw my possibilities-that if I stayed little I could be of use.”

Memories of things that Pitt had told her about small boys up chimneys came back, and she shivered.

“Had you no family? What about your father, or grandparents?”

“Me father was crapped in forty-two, year I was born, and me grandfather got the boat, so they said. Me ma had a brother who was a fine wirer, but he didn’t want nothing to do with kids, did he? Not one that was too young to be any use. Besides, fine wiring ain’t an art as needs kids.”

“What is ‘crapped’?” she asked.

He drew a hand across his throat, then held it up behind him to imitate a rope.

She blushed with embarrassment.

“Oh, I’m sorry-I-”

“Don’t matter,” he dismissed it. “Weren’t no good to me anyway.”

“And your grandfather went to sea? Didn’t he return?”

“Bless you, Miss. You really is from another world, ain’t you? Not went to sea, Miss, but got sent to Australia.”

“Oh.” She could think of nothing else to say to that. “And your uncle?”

“Fine wiring is the picking of ladies’ pockets, Miss. Very delicate art, that is. Don’t use kids, like some does. No use for me, see? So they gave me to a kidsman who taught me a bit o’ oly fakin’-that’s pickin’ silk handkerchiefs out o’ pockets to you, Miss, to earn me keep, so to speak. Then when I got older, but not much bigger, he sole me to a first-class cracksman. Climb through any set o’ bars, I could. Ease myself through them like a snake. Many’s the toffken I bin in and out of, and opened the door for ’em.”

“What’s a toffken?” She felt her father would be furious if he knew of this extraordinary conversation, but it was a world which appalled her too much to turn her back on it. She was fascinated as a child is by a scab that he must keep picking at.

“A swell house, like maybe you lives in.” He seemed to bear her no resentment, but rather to find her the more interesting for it.

“I don’t think we have a great deal worth taking,” she said honestly. “What happened to you then?”

“Well, come the time I got too big, of course. But before that, he got caught and I never seen him again. But he’d taught me a lot o’ things, like how to use all ’is tools, how to do a spot of star glazing-”

“Star gazing?” she said incredulously.

He burst out with rich, dry laughter.

“Bless you. You are a caution. Star glazing. Look.” He got off his seat and went to the window. “Say you wanted to get through that piece of glass. Well, you lean up against it,” he demonstrated. “Put your knife here, near the edge, and press hard but gentle, till the glass cracks. Not so hard it falls out, mind. Then you put brown paper plaster over it so it all sticks, and presto-you can pull the glass out without a whole lot o’ noise. Put your hand in and undo the latch.” He looked back at her in obvious triumph.

“I see. Didn’t you ever get caught?”

“Of course I did! But you expects that, don’t you, occasional like?”

“You didn’t consider taking-a-a-regular job?” She did not want to say an honest job. For some incomprehensible reason, she did not want to hurt his feelings.

“I’d got a ready-made team, ’adn’t I? Got me tools, a good crow, the ’andsomest canary in London, and a good fence as lived in a flash house, nice and comfortable for us, and a few dolly-shops if we hit hard times. What else did I need? What did I want to go and break me back for in some factory or sweatshop for a few pence a day?”

“What are the birds for?”

“Birds?” his face puckered up. “What birds?”

“The crow and the canary?”

He chuckled in genuine delight.

“Oh, I do like talking to you, Miss. You’re a refreshment, you are. A crow is either a quack, a medical man, or in this case, a feller what stands around and gives the warning if anyone comes along as is dangerous, like a jack, or the crushers, or whatever. And a canary is the one who brings your tools for you. If you’ve got any class, you don’t bring your own tools. You goes to the place, takes a good look around, and then your canary brings them