The Last Pleasure Garden Read online

  ‘Did you now? Rose, I swear, I sometimes think you spend half your life gazing out of that bedroom window. I have told you a thousand times – it is so common.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mama,’ replies Rose, a little shamefaced. ‘But it is the same men, isn’t it?’

  ‘Rose – please, it need not concern you.’

  Charles Perfitt sips from a glass of brandy.

  ‘You know how servants will have hangers-on, Inspector,’ he says at last. ‘I mean, one tries to discourage it, but it is to be expected.’

  ‘I’ve heard it said, sir.’

  ‘But I began to see this fellow Nelson – a labouring man by the look of him – loitering in the street, late at night – almost every night, in fact. Then my wife noticed him in Jane’s company when the girl returned from running an errand. There seemed a disagreeable intimacy between them. I told Jane it had been noted and she must desist from seeing him. She protested her innocence of any mischief.’

  ‘You did not believe her?’

  ‘I had some doubts. In any case, it was not more than two or three days after I made my opinions clear, that I saw the fellow loitering once more, just as I was going to my bed. Worse – he went down into our area; I was sure it was for some pre-arranged nocturnal assignation.’

  ‘So you went to have words with him?’ asks Webb.

  ‘With them both. But it was not as I had imagined. Well, it was a fearful attack, Inspector. Rape, that is the only word. The girl was struggling against him, struggling for her life – the way he held her down – she was fortunate not to be seriously injured. Naturally, I intervened. Floored the brute, I am proud to say.’

  ‘And you gave Nelson in charge?’

  ‘I made sure there was a prosecution, Inspector. Any decent man would have done the same for the poor girl – for the common good.’

  ‘Quite, quite,’ says Webb.

  ‘Do you believe it was Nelson that killed her?’ asks Mr. Perfitt anxiously, taking another sip of brandy.

  ‘He claims to have an alibi, sir. And he would have to have made his way into the college somehow. But it’s clear he had no great fondness for the girl, let me put it that way.’

  ‘You have spoken to him?’

  ‘Not fifteen minutes ago, sir. He’s lodging by the World’s End; we found him there, drinking in the public house.’

  Charles Perfitt’s face freezes into a stony, shocked stare.

  ‘The World’s End?’ he says after a brief pause. ‘I rather wish that’s where he were, Inspector. I would happily put ten thousand miles between us.’

  ‘I do not blame you, sir,’ replies Webb. ‘But I think he should know better than to give you any trouble. We’ve marked his card, as it were.’

  ‘But if he bears a grudge against me, Inspector? I have to think of Rose and Caroline.’

  ‘Rose?’

  ‘My daughter, Inspector. I would not put her in any danger,’ says Mr. Perfitt.

  ‘I’ll have a word with the local constables, sir,’ says Bartleby. ‘Make sure they keep a special eye on the premises. And I think we’ll be doing likewise for Mr. Nelson’s movements?’

  Bartleby’s query is directed to Webb, who nods his approval.

  ‘Tell me, sir,’ says Webb, ‘why did Jane Budge leave your employment?’

  ‘Ah, well, we decamped to the country, Inspector. If I may be honest, my wife took the whole business with George Nelson rather badly. My part in the trial was rather a strain on her nerves; our doctor, marvellous fellow, recommended a thorough rest; I took her for the water-cure.’

  ‘And Miss Budge was unwilling to accompany you to . . .’

  ‘Leamington Spa. Dr. Malcolm has his own establishment there. I confess, the baths did Caroline a great deal of good.’

  ‘A pleasant holiday, you might say.’

  ‘Yes,’ replies Mr. Perfitt. ‘I suppose you might.’

  ‘Well, I am sure we have wasted enough of your time, sir,’ says Webb, raising himself from his chair. ‘Now if you can just find that address for my sergeant, we will be on our way.’

  Caroline Perfitt waits until the two policemen have left the house before she rejoins her husband. She finds him sitting before the drawing-room hearth with an half-empty glass of brandy held loosely in his hand. He looks around as she enters.

  ‘Caroline,’ he says, extending his arm towards her, ‘sit down.’

  ‘Charles, whatever is the matter?’

  ‘George Nelson has been freed. They have released him on leave.’

  Mrs. Perfitt puts her hand to her mouth.

  ‘Good Lord,’ she says in a whisper.

  ‘Perhaps,’ continues Mr. Perfitt, ‘we might take a holiday for a month or so; the firm would not object, I am sure. We might even go abroad?’

  ‘Charles, no! Rose is coming out this season; we have the ball at the Prince’s Ground – and then . . . no, I cannot possibly allow it.’

  ‘It might be for the best,’ says Mr. Perfitt. ‘For Rose’s sake if nothing else. I do not want any unpleasantness.’

  ‘Charles, I assure you, if you have any fears . . .’

  ‘I just thought this whole business was behind us.’

  Mrs. Perfitt rallies. ‘And it is. There is no need to be so rash – promise me you will sleep upon it, at least.’

  Mr. Perfitt looks solemnly at his wife.

  ‘I doubt I shall get much sleep at all.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Decimus Webb bites into a slightly stale piece of buttered bread provided by Metcalf’s Temperance Coffee House, chewing it rather ruminatively. The bread itself comes upon a plate in four thick slices, almost sufficient to constitute a loaf. Served to complement the Coffee House’s stock-in-trade, it provides a ‘fourpenny breakfast’ for weary travellers – a modest outlay for a distinctly modest form of early-morning refreshment. It is, however, eminently suited to the drowsy clerks and impecunious cab-men who constitute a majority of the clientele. Decimus Webb himself might certainly afford somewhere a little better. But he makes the Temperance Coffee House a stop upon his way to work in nearby Scotland Yard whenever he notices that a certain table is free by the window – a table that provides a panorama of Trafalgar Square. And if it is free, and he has anything upon his mind, he makes a point of sitting there. For he can watch through the plate glass and observe the progress of the hundreds of souls who pass by, until the chimes of St. Martin-in-the-Fields eventually persuade him it is time to visit his office.

  Unfortunately, as he looks out of the window, the approach of Sergeant Bartleby from Whitehall often serves to jolt Decimus Webb from whatever reflections, pleasant or unpleasant, might play upon his mind. Today is no exception. The sergeant waves cordially as he catches the inspector’s eye through the glass.

  ‘Morning, sir,’ says Bartleby, as he enters the coffee house. ‘Thought I might catch you here. The Clarence not open yet?’

  ‘Spare me, Sergeant, it is too early in the morning. I take it you have some news?’

  ‘Looks like it. A fellow made himself known to V Division last night – seems he’s Jane Budge’s father.’

  ‘V Division? Wandsworth?’

  ‘Battersea Rise. He’s a potman in some local public house. I said you’d want a word with him.’

  Webb takes a sip of coffee. ‘I suppose it would be wise, before we see the Coroner.’

  ‘The Coroner will have to say it’s murder, though?’ suggests Bartleby. ‘Persons unknown?’

  ‘I should imagine that will be his verdict. Unless you intend to solve the whole business before breakfast, Sergeant. Now find us a cab while I finish my coffee.’

  ‘You not having that bread, then, sir?’

  Webb pauses for a moment, then shakes his head. The sergeant, in turn, takes a slice of bread and bites into it.

  ‘Well,’ says Webb impatiently, ‘what are you waiting for, man?’

  Bartleby swallows, with a little difficulty.

  ‘Cab’s already waiting,
sir,’ replies the sergeant.

  The policemen’s cab takes them from Westminster down to Battersea, until they come at last to Mr. Budge’s given address – The Old King’s Head, situated upon Folly Lane, not four hundred yards from Battersea Bridge. It proves to be a small rather dingylooking public house with the external appearance of a run-down labourer’s cottage, marked out only by the wooden sign that projects from its upper storey. This bears the head of the house’s titular monarch – although the bewigged face is so dirty and smutted that no particular royal resemblance is visible – and provides a useful clue for the cab-man, who reins in his horse.

  Webb looks around as Bartleby pays the cab-man to wait. There is no doubt that the pub possesses a rather seedy aspect, surrounded on every side by large commercial premises, manufactories with small soot-blackened windows. At one point, doubtless, it sat in a scenic spot, a stone’s throw from the mighty Thames. But now, with a foundry on one side and bridle-maker’s upon the other, it seems very distant from the river, which flows unseen, concealed behind the brick wall of King and Cosgrove’s Turpentine Works, upon the opposing side of the road.

  ‘Mr. Budge told them we could generally find him here,’ says Bartleby.

  ‘That bodes well,’ says Webb.

  The door to the public house lies open, though it is a good two hours or more before drinking may commence. The interior proves to be little better than the outside, a darkened parlour into which sunlight seems reluctant to intrude. There is no landlord behind the modest counter that takes up one corner of the room and there is no-one else in the bar – save for a man in his fifties, clad in a grimy rust-coloured jacket, slumped over one of the tables.

  Bartleby walks over to the man, and bends down by his side.

  ‘Dead drunk. We should have the landlord for breaking his licence.’

  Webb joins the sergeant, and tilts back the man’s head, observing his rather ruddy complexion and heavily-lidded eyes, which do not fall open.

  ‘I know my lushingtons, Sergeant, and I suspect this gentleman is of the confirmed variety. I would not blame the landlord. He probably had his fill last night and stayed put.’

  Webb releases the man’s head, letting it fall heavily back down onto his arms, folded across the table. The shock, however, seems to stir him to a semblance of consciousness, and a pair of bloodshot eyes reveal themselves.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Inspector Webb of the Metropolitan Police,’ says Webb firmly. ‘Am I addressing Mr. Alfred Budge?’

  Mr. Budge somehow contrives to both sit upright and then immediately slump backwards in one continuous motion. ‘That you are, ’Spector. I am that unlucky fellow,’ he replies, after a considerable pause, his voice quite slurred.

  Webb rolls his eyes. ‘Sergeant, find the landlord – he must be out the back if his door is open – and get this . . . Mr. Budge a cup of something suitable.’

  ‘Rum’d do it, old man,’ says Alfred Budge. ‘Drop of rum’d do it.’

  ‘A fellow speculates on his family, don’t he, ’Spector?’ inquires Alfred Budge, some twenty minutes later, and a little more sober.

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Don’t matter whether it’s a boy or a gal, he speculates his own life-blood on the return, don’t he? He invests what he has, what he knows, in that little indiwidual what is the fruits of his loins.’

  Budge’s speech is still rather slurred, albeit with a certain world-weary consistency. Webb cannot help but frown as ‘fruits’ and ‘loins’ take on a peculiar elasticity of pronunciation.

  ‘And this,’ he continues, ‘is what he gets for his trouble.’

  Mr. Budge pauses and sighs, closing his eyes.

  ‘There will be a Coroner’s inquest, today, if you wish to attend,’ suggests Bartleby.

  Mr. Budge merely shakes his head.

  ‘There is the question of a burial,’ says Webb. ‘Or will it be upon the parish?’

  Mr. Budge opens his eyes. ‘No, not a parish job, ’Spector. You send her here when you’re done.’

  ‘You live here then?’

  ‘Potman, you see?’ says Budge, waving his hand indiscriminately at the room.

  ‘That cannot pay much, in a small place like this?’

  ‘He’s paid in kind, I reckon,’ whispers Bartleby.

  ‘I gets by, ’Spector,’ says Budge, seemingly oblivious to the sergeant’s comment. ‘You send Janey here. We’ll see her done right. Proper send-off.’

  ‘Is there a Mrs. Budge?’ asks Webb.

  ‘There was a sweet creature of that name, ’Spector. But I don’t care to recall her. Beyond price she was – the old girl.’

  Budge seems to sag as he speaks, his eyes faltering. Webb shakes his head, casting a glance to Bartleby that suggests he is ready to leave. As the two policemen rise, however, the drunken man recovers himself a little.

  ‘Nelson. That’s your man, ’Spector. Pound to a penny, it were Nelson.’

  Webb stops as he reaches for the door. ‘George Nelson? What about him? Have you spoken to him, Mr. Budge?’

  ‘No, I don’t bloody speak to him. I don’t needs speak to him. He’s the one – I’ll swear it blind. If it weren’t for my old ’firmity,’ says Budge, slapping his leg, ‘I’d settle him. I’d settle him, all right. My poor sweet little girl.’

  ‘Mr. Budge, please,’ says Webb, ‘think for a moment. Anything in connection with George Nelson might be important to us. Did your daughter say anything about Nelson before she died? Or was there anyone else, perhaps, who might bear her a grudge?’

  Budge drunkenly waves his hand at the inspector’s questioning, as if attempting to swat a fly. ‘Here, who are you anyway? What’s your game, pestering a honest man?’ he mutters, his eyes drooping once more.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ replies Webb, courteously as he can manage. ‘I am sorry for your loss.’

  Alfred Budge remains at his table until the policemen have gone; to all appearances barely conscious. It is only when he is joined by his wife, who walks cautiously into the tap-room, that he shows some signs of wakefulness, assisted by a firm poke in ribs.

  ‘Wotcha do that for?’ exclaims Mr. Budge.

  ‘Did you tell ’em what I said? About Nelson?’

  ‘I told ’em, for pity’s sake,’ says Mr. Budge, in a rather self-pitying tone.

  ‘Where they keeping our little girl?’

  ‘Chelsea dead-house. We can have her tomorrow. Poor thing.’

  Mrs. Budge scowls. ‘You old fool. Much good you were to her when she was alive.’

  ‘Don’t say that, Maggie – don’t be harsh,’ replies Mr. Budge. ‘I did what you said, I swear I did. I don’t see why, mind you.’

  Mrs. Budge pokes her husband more vigorously, producing an audible yelp.

  ‘Because, I has to be discreet, Alfred Budge. I have a handful of little reasons at home to be discreet, don’t I? Or do you think the bloody peelers would turn a blind eye, if they came sticking their beaks in?’

  ‘I swear, I told them,’ protests Mr. Budge, as if still arguing the point.

  ‘You’d better have,’ replies Mrs. Budge emphatically.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  20th May 1875

  My Dearest Laetitia,

  Forgive your foolish little sister – whom you must think an ungrateful, spiteful creature – for not replying sooner. I confess, Letty, the ball is never out of my thoughts – to think that there is only tomorrow! – and I have been awful slow with my letters.

  The gown is now finished, you will be glad to hear; I have shown it to Bea and she is quite green and says she now think hers is frightful! Mama still frets about it! Papa, meanwhile, says nothing – he considers Mama and myself quite empty-headed.

  Now, Letty – I must ask you something – as a dear sister who is in my confidence, as I hope I am in yours. A queer thing happened yesterday. Two strange men visited us twice and Mama positively would not tell me who they were. This morning – at breakfast –
Mama and Papa both seemed so very quiet and low in spirits, I almost thought they were ill. It is as if they know some awful secret, which they will not tell – please, Letty, I hope that neither you nor the boys are in a bad way? Please, you would not keep such a thing from your own Rose? I am quite grown up enough to know the worst.

  Please answer and put my heart at ease.

  Your loving sister,

  Rose

  Charles Perfitt picks his silk hat from its stand, and opens his front door. He looks outside with the wary glance of a seasoned commuter, and finds that the sky has darkened since he enjoyed his breakfast, and that specks of rain have begun to fall. He steps back, therefore, to grab the elegant ivory-handled umbrella that is always left by the door. His wife appears upon the stairs.

  ‘Charles?’ she says, hurrying down to the hall. ‘You did not say you were going?’

  ‘Did I not, my dear? I am sorry. You know I always leave at this hour.’

  ‘Mind you do not get soaked through.’

  ‘No, my dear, that is not my intention,’ he replies with a rather forced smile, brandishing the umbrella in his hand.

  ‘Charles?’

  ‘Really, Caroline, what is it? I will be late.’

  ‘Have you thought about what we discussed last night? You were so quiet at breakfast, and I did not want to mention it in Rose’s presence.’

  Charles Perfitt nods. ‘I have.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I think you are right. We should stand our ground; a coward would run away, and I am not a coward.’

  ‘I never said you were, Charles. But you mean it – we may go to the ball? You realise it is tomorrow night?’

  ‘The ball! As if I could forget,’ says Charles Perfitt. ‘Yes, why let that wretched man ruin everything? Now, I shall see you tonight.’

  ‘Tonight,’ replies Mrs. Perfitt, smiling with relief, closing the door as her husband departs.

  Mr. Perfitt walks swiftly out onto the road, raising his umbrella. His wife does not observe his progress down Edith Grove, which is perhaps fortunate. For at the Grove’s junction with the King’s Road, facing Cremorne Gardens, he turns left instead of right, walking away from Chelsea Station, in the direction of the World’s End public house.