Great Porter Square: A Mystery. Volume 1

Our Reporter felt a nervous twitching in the hand he held, and, looking up into the face of Antony Cowlrick, saw with surprise that it was agitated by a sudden and powerful emotion. Antony Cowlrick’s eyes were fixed upon the woman, who was walking slowly away.

She was young and fair, and in her movements there was an aimlessness which did not speak well for her character. But, as Mr. Goldberry observed, we live in levelling times, and it is hard to judge accurately of a person’s social position from dress and manner. The locality was against this young and pretty woman; her being young and pretty was against her; her apparent want of occupation was against her. But she spoke to no one, looked at no one.

Antony Cowlrick hastened after her. Our Reporter did not follow him. He was not acting the part of a detective. What he did was in pursuance of his duty, and it is not in his nature to give offence. Therefore he stood where Antony Cowlrick left him, and waited for events.

When Antony Cowlrick reached the woman’s side, he touched her arm, and spoke to her. She did not reply, but glanced carelessly at him, and, averting her eyes with a gesture of repugnance, pursued her way. Before she had taken three steps, Antony Cowlrick was again by her side. Again he touched her arm and addressed her; and this time, instead of attempting to avoid him, she turned and looked up at him. For a moment doubt was expressed in her face – only for a moment. As though a sudden and wonderful light had entered her soul, her face became illumined with joy. She was pretty before; now she was beautiful.

Some words of delight struggled to her lips, but died in their utterance. Antony Cowlrick placed his hand on her mouth so that they should not be spoken aloud – directing his eyes at the same time towards the spot occupied by our Reporter.

The woman pressed her hand upon the man’s hand, still at her lips, and kissed it passionately.

Then she and Antony Cowlrick conversed hurriedly. Evidently questions were being asked and answered – questions upon which much depended. The last question asked by Antony Cowlrick was answered by the woman with a sad shake of her head. He held her fingers in his hand, and seemed to look at them inquiringly. Did he expect to find rings there which he could convert into money? Her fingers were bare of ornament. He looked at her ears, then at the bosom of her dress. She possessed neither ear-rings nor brooch.

Under such circumstances as these, speech was not needed for the understanding of what was passing between the haggard, unshaven, poverty-stricken man and the equally poor and beautiful woman.

Antony Cowlrick did not hesitate long. A dozen strides brought him to our Reporter.

“I have found a friend,” he said.

“So I perceive,” replied our Reporter.

“You offered awhile ago to lend me a sovereign. I refused to accept it. Will you lend it me now?”

Our Reporter gave it to him instantly, without a word.

The swift graciousness of the response appeared to touch Antony Cowlrick, and an expression of gratitude dwelt on his features.

“I thank you. My gratitude will remain ever as a debt. I appreciate your delicacy in not intruding upon my interview with my friend.”

“She is not a new friend,” observed our Reporter.

“No, indeed,” was the reply.

“It seems to me that she might have appeared at the police-court to give evidence in your favour.”

“Supposing she could say anything in my favour.”

“It is evident that she would say nothing to harm you. Her joy at meeting you was too palpable.”

“You have a trick of keen observation. Perhaps she did not know of my awkward position.”

“How could she help knowing it when your name has been so prominent in the papers for weeks?”

“My name? Ah, I forgot. But I cannot offer you a satisfactory explanation. More than ever now will unnecessary and immediate publicity be likely to injure me. You will keep your promise – for three days you will not write about me?”

“I will keep my promise. At the end of three days I shall simply publish what has passed between ourselves and Mr. Goldberry.”

“It seems to me to be singularly devoid of interest.”

“You are mistaken. Newspaper readers peruse such details as these with eagerness. You must not forget that you are in some way, near or remote, connected with an atrocious crime.”

“You foil me at every point. Good-day.”

“Good-day!” exclaimed our Reporter. “Shall I not see you again?”

“You will, if you play the spy upon me.”

“I shall not do that. But you promised to afford me an opportunity of becoming better acquainted with you.”

“That is true. Wait a moment.”

He rejoined the woman, and after exchanging a few words with her, returned to our Reporter.

“You will not publish the address I am about to give you?”

“Not if you do not wish it.”

“I do not wish it. We must not play with reputations – especially with the reputation of a woman. Have you pencil and paper? Thank you. Call to-night at ten o’clock at this address.”

He wrote an address in our Reporter’s note-book, and, directly afterwards, left Leicester Square with his newly-found friend. As he turned in the direction of Piccadilly, he hailed a cab, into which he and his companion hastily scrambled.

By ten o’clock that night our Reporter paused before the door of the house in which he expected to find Antony Cowlrick, and debated with himself whether he should inquire for the man by name. It was quite natural, he thought, that a person who had been placed in a position so unpleasant as Antony Cowlrick should wish to avoid the disagreeable curiosity of prying eyes and vulgar tongues, and that in a new lodging he should give another name than his own. The house was situated in one of the lowest neighbourhoods, where only the poorest people dwell. There were at least half-a-dozen small bells on the right hand side of the door, and our Reporter fell into deep disgrace by pulling them one after another, and bringing down persons whose faces were strange to him.

He felt himself in a difficulty, when, giving a description of the man and the woman he wished to see, one lodger said, “O, it’s the second-floor back;” and another said, “Oh, it’s the third-floor front;” and another said, “What do yer mean by comin’ ’ere at this time o’ night rousing up people as want to be abed and asleep?” Now, this last rebuke was not taken in good part by our Reporter, whose knowledge of the slums of London, being somewhat extensive, had led him to the belief that householders and lodgers in these localities seldom go to bed before the public-house lights are put out. Sad, indeed, is it to reflect that the Gin-shop is the Church of the Poor, and that it is open from early morn till midnight to lead poverty and ignorance to lower and lower depths, in which it is impossible for purity and innocence to find a resting place!

At length, in despair, our Reporter, having no alternative, inquired of a woman in the house whether a person of the name of Cowlrick was within. The woman looked suspiciously at our Reporter, and said she would call “her man.” Her man came, and our Reporter repeated his question.

“Cowlrick!” cried the man. “Send I may live if that ain’t the name of the feller as was up at the perlice court for the murder in Great Porter Square! Yer don’t mean to say that it’s ’im you’ve come to inquire for at a respectable ’ouse?”

“Shut the door in his face, Jim!” called out the woman, from the top of the stairs.

No sooner said than done. The door was slammed in our Reporter’s face, and he was “left out in the cold,” as the saying is.

What, now, was our Reporter to do? He had no intention of giving up his search; the woof of his nature is strong and tough, and difficulties rather inspire than depress him. Within a stone’s throw from a weak hand there were six public-houses; within a stone’s throw from any one of these were half-a-dozen other public-houses. It was as though a huge pepper-box, filled with public-houses, had been shaken over the neighbourhood. There was a certain peculiarity in the order and arrangement of their fall. Most of them had fallen into the corners of the courts and narrow streets. There must be a Providence in this – a Providence which, watching over the welfare of brewers and distillers, has conferred upon them and upon their heirs and assigns an inalienable right in the corners of every street and lane in the restless Babylonian City.

Our Reporter made the rounds of these public-houses, ordered liquor in every one of them, and poured it on the floor – to the indignation of many topers, who called it “sinful waste;” especially to the indignation of one blear-eyed, grey-haired, old woman, with three long strong hairs sticking out of her chin. This old creature, who looked as if she had just stepped away from the witches’ cauldron in Macbeth (the brew there not being strong enough), screamed out to our Reporter, “You’ll come to want! You’ll come to want! For Gawd’s sake, don’t spill it, my dear! Give it to me – give it to me!” and struggled with him for the liquor.

Within half-an-hour of midnight our Reporter found himself once more before the house in which he supposed Antony Cowlrick would sleep that night. But he was puzzled what to do. To ring the bells again was hazardous. He determined to wait until a lodger entered the house; then he himself would enter and try the chamber doors.

The minutes passed. No guardian angel of a lodger came to his aid. But all at once he felt a tug at his trousers. He looked down. It was a little girl. A very mite of a girl.

“If yer please, sir – ”

“Yes, little one,” said our Reporter.

“Will yer pull the blue bell, and knock five times? I can’t reach.”

CHAPTER X

THE SPECIAL REPORTER OF THE “EVENING MOON” MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF A LITTLE MATCH GIRL

PULL the blue bell, and knock five times!

The request was not to be denied. That the small party who made it could not “reach” was self-evident, for she was scarcely three feet and a half in height. But to say, “pull the blue bell” was one thing, and to pull the blue bell was another. Our Reporter had pulled every bell on the door, as he believed, and he looked in vain for a blue one.

“I don’t see the blue bell, little girl,” he said.

“Yes, yer do,” replied the little girl, with audacious effrontery. “Not where yer looking! It’s all by itself on the other side.”

Our Reporter found the bell, “all by itself,” on the left hand side of the door, where bells usually are not, and he pulled it, and knocked five times slowly.

“That ain’t right!” cried the little girl; her voice came as loud and shrill as if it proceeded from the throat of a canary. “Yer must knock like a postman, and a little ’un in – rat-tat, rat-tat, tat!”

Our Reporter obeyed, fully expecting to be assaulted for kicking up such a row so late in the night; but no one took any notice of him, and no one answered the ring and the knocks.

The little girl waited patiently, much more patiently than our Reporter, who rang and knocked again with the air of a man who was engaged in a contest and was getting the worst of it.

“Must I give it up?” he mentally asked himself, and answering immediately, “No, I will see Antony Cowlrick to-night, or I’ll know the reason why.” Then he looked down at the form of the little girl, and called, “Little girl!”

The little girl did not reply. She was leaning against the door-post in a state of perfect contentment. The particular house with which our Reporter might be said to be wrestling was in the shade; there was no lamp-post within twenty yards of it, and the night was dark.

“Little girl!” repeated our Reporter, in a louder voice.

Still no reply.

He leant down, and placed his hands on her shoulders. She did not move. He stooped lower, and looked into her face. She was fast asleep.

Even in the dark he saw how much she was to be pitied. Her poor wan face was dirty, and traces of tears were on it; her hair hung in thick knots over her forehead; her hands were begrimed; her clothes were rags; on her feet were a pair of what once were dancing shoes, and had twinkled in the ballet. They were half-a-dozen sizes too large for the little feet, and were tied to her ankles with pieces of twine. Their glory was gone indeed, and, though they had once been satin, they were fit only for the rag-bag or the dust-hole.

“Poor child!” sighed our Reporter. “It is easy to see what you are growing up into!”

He whispered in her ear, “Wake up, little one! I’ve knocked loud enough to raise the dead, and no one answers. Wake up!”

As she made no movement, he shook her, gently and with tenderness, whereupon she murmured some words, but so indistinctly that he did not gather their import.

“Eh?” he said, placing his ear to her lips. “What did you say?”

“Two boxes a penny,” she murmured. “Please buy a box! – starving mother at ’ome!”

A woman shuffled along the street, and stopped before the house, with the supper beer in a brown jug. As she opened the door with the latch-key, she glanced at the sleeping child.

“Why, it’s little Fanny!” she cried.

“Who asked me,” added our Reporter, “to pull the blue bell, and knock five times?”

“Yes,” observed the woman. “Third-floor back.”

“The young woman,” said our Reporter, taking up the cue, and slipping sixpence into the woman’s hand – (when do our poor refuse alms?) – “the young woman in the third-floor back – is she at home?”

“Goodness only knows,” replied the woman, who, having accepted the money, felt that she must earn it; “she’s that quiet, is Blanche, that there’s no telling when she’s in or when she’s out.”

“Let me see,” said our Reporter, pretending to consider, “how long has Blanche lived in the house?”

“About three months, I should say. Pretty, ain’t she?”

“Very. Young, too, to be the mother of little Fanny here.”

“Lord love you!” exclaimed the woman; “little Fanny’s no relation of her’n. She’s a single woman is Blanche. I thought you was a friend.”

“So I am. But this is the first time I’ve been here to see her.”

“You’re the first I’ve ever seen come after her.”

“She has not many friends, then?”

“Not one that I know of.”

“She has had an old friend with her to-day,” said our Reporter, thinking he might by this question obtain some information of Antony Cowlrick.

“Has she? I’m glad to hear it. I’ve wondered a good deal about the girl, and so has all of us in the street. She don’t mix with us free like. Not that she ain’t affable! But she keeps herself to herself. I must go in now,” said the woman, with a giggle, “or my old man’ll think I’ve run off with somebody.”

She entered the house, and our Reporter, with little Fanny asleep in his arms, followed. On the first floor the woman vanished, and he pursued his way to the third. The stairs were in utter darkness, and he had to exercise great care to save his shins and to avoid disturbing the lodgers in the house. In due time he reached the third floor, and struck a match. There were only two doors on the landing, and he saw at once which of the two led to the back room. He knocked, and received no response; and then he tried the handle of the door. It gave way, and he was in the room, in utter darkness.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, addressing, as he believed, the occupant, “but as no one answered” —

He did not finish the sentence, for the stillness of the room affected him. His position was certainly a perplexing one. He listened for the breathing of some person, but heard none.

“Antony Cowlrick,” he thought, “have you been playing me a trick?”

He struck another match, and lit a candle which was on a small table. Then he looked around. The room was empty.

“Now,” thought our Reporter, “if this is not the room in which Antony Cowlrick led me to expect he would receive me, and the tenant proper himself or herself should suddenly appear, I shall scarcely be prepared to offer a reasonable excuse for my intrusion.”

No articles of clothing were in sight to enlighten him as to the sex of the tenant of this third-floor back. There was a bed in decent order, and he laid little Fanny upon it. Having done this, he noticed that food was on the table – the remains of a loaf cut in slices, with a scraping of butter on them, a small quantity of tea screwed up in paper, and a saucer with about an ounce of brown sugar in it.

“Not exactly a Rothschild,” mused our Reporter, “but quite as happy perhaps.”

For our Reporter has his own views of things, and contends that more happiness is to be found among the poor than among the rich.

Continuing his investigations, our Reporter was not long before he made an important discovery. Exactly in front of the slice of bread and butter on the table was a chair, upon which the person who appeared to be invited to the frugal supper would naturally sit, and exactly behind the bread and butter was a piece of paper, set up on end, upon which was written:

“Dear little Fanny. Good-bye. If ever I am rich I will try and find you. Look on the mantelshelf.”

There was a peculiarity in the writing. The letters forming the name “Fanny” were traced in large capital letters, such as a child who could not read fine writing might be able to spell; the rest was written in small hand.

Our reporter argued the matter logically thus: The little girl asleep on the bed could not read, but understood the large letters in which her name was written. The supper on the table was set out for her. Preparing to partake of it, her eyes would fall on the paper, and she would see her name upon it. Curiosity to know what else was written would impel her to seek a lodger in the house – perhaps the landlady – who would read the message aloud to her, and would look on the mantelshelf.

Why should not our Reporter himself read the message to little Fanny, and why should he not look on the mantelshelf?

He did the latter without further cogitation. Upon the mantelshelf he found two unsealed envelopes, with writing on them. Each contained money.

One was addressed “For Fanny.” It contained a shilling. On the other was written: “Mrs. Rogers, landlady. If a gentleman engaged upon a newspaper calls to see Blanche and a friend whom she met in Leicester Square to-day, please give him the enclosed. Blanche is not coming back. Her rent is paid up to next Saturday. Good-bye.”

He had not, then, entered the wrong apartment. This room had been occupied by Antony Cowlrick’s fair friend, and the enclosure was for our Reporter.

He took it out; it was a sealed letter. He opened it, and read, as a sovereign fell to the floor: —

“Sir, – I am enabled thus soon to repay you the sovereign you so generously lent me to-day. Had it been out of my power to do so to-night you would most probably have seen me as you expected. It is better as it is, for I have nothing to communicate which I desire to make public. I shall ever retain a lively sense of your kindness, and I depend upon the fulfilment of your promise not to write about me in your paper for three days. If you do not know what else to do with the money received by your paper in response to its appeal for subscriptions on my behalf, I can tell you. Give it to the poor. – Your faithful servant,

“ANTONY COWLRICK.”

The handwriting was that of an educated man, and the mystery surrounding Antony Cowlrick was deepened by the last proceeding.

A voice from the bed aroused our Reporter from his meditations. Little Fanny was awake, and was calling for Blanche.

“Blanche is not in yet,” said our Reporter. “Come and eat your supper.”

The little girl struggled to her feet, and approached the table. The curiosity of our Reporter was strongly excited, and before giving Fanny the message and the shilling left for her by Blanche, he determined to question her. Thereupon the following colloquy ensued: —

Our Reporter: This is your supper, Fanny.

Fanny (carefully spreading the brown sugar over her bread): Yes. Blanche never forgits me.

Our Reporter: Sugar every night?

Fanny: Yes, I likes it.

Our Reporter: Blanche is not your mother?

Fanny (with her mouth full): Lor! No.

Our Reporter: Is she your aunt or your cousin?

Fanny: Lor! No. She ain’t nothink to me but a – a —

Our Reporter (prompting, seeing that Fanny was in a difficulty): Friend?

Fanny: More nor that. A brick!

Our Reporter: She is good to you?

Fanny: There ain’t nobody like her.

Our Reporter: What are you?

Fanny (laughing): Wot am I? A gal.

Our Reporter: Do you go to school?

Fanny (with a cunning shake of her head): Ketch me at it!

Our Reporter: What do you do?

Fanny: I sells matches – two boxes a penny – and I falls asleep on purpose in front of the Nacheral Gallery.

Our Reporter: The National Gallery. In Trafalgar Square, where the fountains are?

Fanny: That’s the place – where the little man without legs plays the accorgeon.

Our Reporter: Why do you fall asleep there?

Fanny (with a sad, wistful smile): That’s mother’s little game. She makes me.

Our Reporter: Mother’s little game! Then you have a mother?

Fanny (shuddering): Raythur.

Our Reporter: Where does she live?

Fanny: At the pub round the corner, mostly – the Good Sir Mary Tun – till they turns her out.

Our Reporter: The Good Samaritan. But why does your mother make you fall asleep on purpose in front of the National Gallery?

Fanny: Don’t yer see? It’s a dodge. Mother gives me twelve boxes o’ matches, and I’ve got to sell ’em. If I don’t, I gits toko! Well, I don’t always sell ’em, though I try ever so ’ard. Then I falls down on the pavement up agin the wall, or I sets down on the church steps oppersite, with the boxes o’ matches in my ’and, and I goes to sleep. Pretends to, yer know; I’m wide awake all the time, I am. A lady and gent comin’ from the theaytre, stops and looks at me. “Poor little thing!” she ses. “Come along!” he ses. Sometimes the lady won’t come along, and she bends over, and puts ’er ’and on my shoulder. “Why don’t yer go ’ome?” she ses. “I can’t, mem,” I ses, “till I’ve sold my matches.” Then she gives me a copper, but don’t take my matches; and other gents and ladies as stops to look gives me somethink – I’ve ’ad as much as a shillin’ give me in a lump, more nor once. When they’re gone, mother comes, and wrenches my ’and open, and takes the money, and ses, “Go to sleep agin you little warmint, or I’ll break every bone in yer body!” Then I shuts my eyes, and the game’s played all over agin.

Our Reporter: Is your mother near you all the while, Fanny, that she comes and takes the money from you?

Fanny: Lor! No! That would spoil the game. She’s watchin’ on the other side of Trafalgar Square. She knows ’er book, does mother! Sometimes I’m so tired that I falls asleep in real earnest, and then I ketches it – ’ot!

Our Reporter: Does she beat you?

Fanny: Does she miss a chance?

The child hitches her shoulder out of her ragged frock, and our Reporter sees on the poor thin back, the bladebones of which stick up like knives, the marks of welts and bruises. There is room in our literature for another kind of book on “The Mothers of England” than that written by a celebrated authoress many years ago. Fanny’s poor little back is black and blue, and when our Reporter, with gentle finger, touches one of the bruises, the child quivers with pain.

Our Reporter: Altogether, Fanny, your life is not a rosy one?

Fanny: O, I ’ave lots of larks with the boys! And I’ve got some ’air.

Our Reporter (very much puzzled): Some what?

Fanny: Some ’air. I’ll show yer.

She jumps from her chair, creeps under the bed, and emerges presently, her face flushed and excited, with something wrapped in a piece of old newspaper. She displays her treasure to our astonished Reporter. It is a chignon, apparently made of tow, which she fixes proudly on her head. The colour is many shades lighter than Fanny’s own hair, which is a pretty dark brown, but that is of the smallest consequence to the child, who evidently believes that the chignon makes a woman of fashion of her.

Fanny: I wears it on Sundays, when I goes to the Embankment. Mother don’t know I’ve got it. If she did, she’d take it from me, and wear it ’erself. I say – ain’t it splendid, the Embankment?