Carver's Quest Read online

‘They are merely buttons and bits of paper, Mr Pradd.’

  ‘There’s writing on them bits of paper, though.’ Pradd, Adam decided, could not read. It would explain the ridiculous aliases in the register. Visitors to the lodging house could sign in under any name they wanted and the keeper would be none the wiser. However, illiterate though he was, he seemed to have an almost mystical belief in the power of words and writing. It explained why he had kept the tattered scraps of paper and why he continued to hope that they held some value.

  ‘It’s nothing of significance. Merely lines of poetry.’

  ‘Ain’t poetry of significance?’

  ‘Very much so. I would not wish to denigrate the significance of the Muses. In the past, I have even been responsible for committing verses to paper myself.’

  Pradd looked puzzled.

  ‘In this particular case, however,’ Adam went on, ‘the poetry seems to be of importance only to the poet. And perhaps to the person the poet was addressing.’

  The lodging-house keeper, realising at last that there was no profit to be made from the items he had preserved, began to put them back into the bag.

  ‘Jest tryin’ to be ’elpful.’

  ‘You have been helpful, Mr Pradd. Most helpful. And now, before we leave you, we would like to see the bed where the count slept on the last night he was here.’

  ‘Don’t want much, do ’ee?’ Pradd’s brief dalliance with courtesy was over. Seeing his chance of reward disappearing, he reverted to his earlier bad temper. ‘And I ain’t got nothing to do, o’ course, but run around after every nosey bugger as wants to know the far end of everythin’.’

  ‘You are, I am sure, a busy man,’ Adam replied, ‘and I appreciate the time you have given us. But I must beg this one further favour of you.’

  Adam held out a silver coin, which Pradd promptly pocketed. The gift seemed to do little to placate the man, since he turned on his heel without a word and marched out of his office. Adam and Quint followed as he left and headed up the stairs.

  Once upon a time, the building had been a handsome dwelling place, but it had long since degenerated into a slum. Paint was peeling from all the walls. The landings were bare of carpets or any other covering. The glass on the windows that looked out onto the street was so grimy that only a little light could penetrate it. Several panes had been broken and inexpertly mended with balls of rags that had been screwed up and thrust into the openings. The stairs themselves looked half-broken and potentially dangerous. For one flight, the wooden handrail had disappeared and been replaced by a grubby length of rope. Adam could peer beneath it and down the stairwell to where one of the lodgers had left the kitchen fireplace and was looking up at the three of them mounting to the top floor. When he realised that Adam was gazing back at him, he returned immediately to the kitchen.

  The dormitory where Jinkinson had slept was on the second floor. Pradd stood in its doorway and gestured towards its far corner. Adam and Quint looked in. A dozen dilapidated beds were crowded into a room that Adam, examining it with mounting disbelief, thought too small for one. Quint, more used to such scenes, was less astonished.

  ‘He crams ’em in as close as barrelled herrings, don’t he?’ he remarked, noticing his master’s surprise.

  ‘But how can this be allowed? What of the regulations?’

  Adam became aware of a noise like wheezing bellows at his elbow. It was Quint laughing.

  ‘Bless you, guv’nor. The regulations are right enough. It’s just that there’s not that many regulators as is interested in ’em.’

  ‘What about the book we saw downstairs?’

  ‘The book must have names,’ Pradd reiterated, as if Adam was questioning this requirement.

  ‘The names go down in the book,’ Quint said. ‘If that’s done, there’s precious few regulators as’ll look much further. What I can’t fathom is why the gent would come here at all.’

  ‘Maybe he brought Ada here. Unsavoury though the place is, it might have been the only place they could meet. It might have been possible for them to snatch some time together when the other lodgers were out.’ Adam sounded doubtful that this was likely. Pradd was outraged by the suggestion.

  ‘I keeps a very decent house here,’ he said. ‘If I finds any of ’em dancing the blanket hornpipe behind my back, they’re out.’

  ‘How can you prevent men and women from consorting one with another?’

  Pradd stared at Adam in bewilderment.

  ‘ ’Ow can you stop ’em doing the double-buttock jig?’ Quint asked.

  ‘Can’t always. But there’s one floor for the men, one floor for the women. If any of ’em is ketched on the wrong floor, it’s a ticket out the door for ’im. Or ’er, o’ course.’ The man thought a moment. ‘It’s mostly ’im, though.’

  ‘Well, I can scarcely believe that Jinkinson would entertain his doxy here. We have reached a dead end, Quint.’ Adam turned to leave. ‘We have detained Mr Pradd long enough. We must go.’

  * * * * *

  Quint and Adam left Pradd and his lodging house and returned to Golden Lane. As they turned the corner into Old Street, a man was waiting for them. It was the lodger who had left the fireside to watch them climb the stairs. Up close, Adam thought, he looked like an animated scarecrow. The man was exceptionally thin-faced, his cheeks so caved in he seemed to be permanently sucking at the air. In some long-vanished historical era, the object on his head had been a black felt billycock. Now it squatted on his greasy hair like a diseased cat about to spring on a mouse. The cuffs of his linen shirt, tattered and filthy, poked out from the sleeves of an ancient velveteen jacket. The brown corduroy trousers he wore had been made for a much taller man and had suffered some kind of abrupt amputation below the knee to enable them to fit. They were so patched with oddments of fabric cut from other garments that there seemed little original material left. The outfit was completed by a battered pair of black boots with holes in them from which small puffs of dust emerged as he shifted uneasily from foot to foot.

  ‘You was asking Pradd about the count,’ he said.

  ‘You have good hearing, sir.’

  The man made a vague gesture as if shyly acknowledging a compliment.

  ‘Them walls at Bellamy’s are so thin you can practically see through ’em, never mind ’ear,’ he said. ‘Anyways, I was stood by Pradd’s office door on purpose. A-listening, like.’

  ‘You were eavesdropping upon us, then.’

  The tattered man made no attempt to deny Adam’s accusation. He merely ignored it.

  ‘He’s a gent, the count,’ he went on. ‘A real gent. He can talk up a storm as well. He can flash the patter, the count can. Never heard a man like him.’

  ‘He is a man of eloquence and education,’ Adam acknowledged. ‘And we need to find him. Do you know where he might be?’

  ‘You ain’t got nothing to do with the bluebottles? Or the debt collectors?’

  ‘My dear sir, we are merely the count’s friends. We have not seen him for some time and we are concerned about his well-being.’

  ‘Cos the count’s a gent,’ the man repeated, still looking suspicious of their intentions. ‘I ain’t wanting to see him in trouble.’

  ‘He is more likely to be in trouble if we don’t find him.’ Adam felt in the pockets of the fustian trousers he had borrowed from Quint and found a sixpenny piece. He held it out to the man. ‘Maybe this will prove a token of our good intentions.’

  The lodger seized the coin so swiftly that Adam scarcely registered that the man’s hand had moved to take it.

  ‘I don’t want you thinking that I’d be telling you this just for the tanner.’ Adam indicated that no thought could have been further from his mind. ‘But, if you’re looking out for the count, you might ask after him down the tabernacle.’

  ‘The tabernacle?’

  ‘The Tabernacle of the All-Conquering Saviour is what Dwight calls it.’

  ‘And what is the Tabernacle of the All-Conquering Saviour
?’

  ‘Bunch of interfering busybodies,’ the man said, in tones of disgust.

  ‘But busybodies who interfere with the activities of the count?’

  ‘’E went to their meetings a few times. Quite a few times. But ’e liked his liquor. Them meddlers don’t ’old with liquor.’

  ‘Abstainers, eh? Not to be trusted, then.’

  ‘They don’t ’old with anything a man might do for a bit of fun. And every man needs a bit of fun.’

  The lodger was evidently a champion of a man’s right to do as he wished, unhampered by either busybodies or Tabernacles.

  ‘Fun is very definitely something we all need,’ Adam agreed. ‘Where might one find this Tabernacle?’

  ‘Just round the corner, ain’t it? In Whitecross Street. Can’t miss it. Sign’s outside. And that oily bastard, Dwight, is always greasing his way around.’

  ‘And Dwight is?’

  ‘’E calls hisself a reverend,’ the lodger said in tones that suggested he was willing to dispute Dwight’s right to do so. He continued to stand in the path as if half-expecting another coin to come his way. When he realised that none would be forthcoming, he took a step or two backwards and touched his forefinger to his ancient billycock. ‘I’ll be leaving you two gents. If you finds the count, tell him Ben Madden was asking after him.’

  ‘We will and I thank you for your information, Mr Madden.’

  The man made another vague gesture of farewell, then turned and began to trudge down Old Street towards Aldersgate. Adam and his manservant watched him depart.

  ‘If ever a bloke looked as if ’e’d gone and ’opped ’is perch and was still walking around to save the funeral expenses, there he goes,’ Quint remarked after a moment.

  ‘He does look like a gentleman who has seen better days, does he not?’

  ‘He soon had your sixpence, though.’ Quint spoke in an accusatory tone of voice. ‘He was on to it faster than a tom-tit on to a horse turd. And he ain’t the first.’

  Adam glanced sharply at his manservant. He was in no mood to indulge Quint’s impertinence.

  ‘It is true that, ever since we began our investigations, I have been doling out coin of the realm to the deserving and the not-so-deserving like Lord Bountiful. But they are my coins to dispense as I wish, Quint, so I will not listen to criticism from you. I am confident that one day my generosity will bring me my just rewards. Perhaps Ben Madden’s information will prove worth a sixpence.’ Adam paused before continuing, his tone now more conciliatory. ‘What do you suppose the Reverend Dwight’s Tabernacle is?’

  ‘Just another mission. There’s one down every street in this neck of the woods.’

  ‘And they all attract a congregation?’

  ‘Most of ’em do. Not that folk round here are that choosy. They’d as soon be Turks if you give ’em a bowl of soup and a hot potato.’

  ‘Which the Reverend Dwight does.’

  ‘Prob’ly.’

  ‘You seem well informed about these missions, Quint. For a man not noted for his donations to charity and the poor.’

  Quint shrugged. ‘I’m not one to dole out pennies to every shivering Jemmy as sits bare-arsed in the street, if that’s what you mean,’ he said with marked emphasis.

  ‘Mr Madden was neither bare-arsed nor sitting,’ Adam reminded him.

  ‘Ain’t the point. I could prob’ly have told you about the missions and saved you a tanner.’

  ‘True enough. You are a positive almanack of miscellaneous information, Quint. Sometimes I wonder that one small head can carry all you know.’

  ‘It ain’t so small,’ Quint said, aggrieved.

  ‘Perhaps we should visit the Tabernacle of the All-Conquering Saviour.’ Adam thought for a moment. ‘No, there is no need for you to accompany me. Make your way back to Doughty Street. I shall visit the establishment alone. Today is Sunday, of course. The reverend’s busiest day. Who knows? Perhaps Jinkinson will be amongst the congregation.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The mission house was not an imposing building. A single storey of plain red brick, it was set back slightly from the others in Whitecross Street. On the opposite side of the street, a two-storey building had just recently been demolished. Nothing of it remained but one wall, the spectral outlines of staircases, floors and ceilings still visible on its crumbling bricks. Huge pieces of timber were propped against the remaining houses in the row in order to prevent them tumbling into the streets. As he approached, Adam could see that a service of some kind had recently come to an end. The Reverend Dwight’s congregation was emerging into the Sunday afternoon sunshine. Adam was surprised by its numbers. At least fifty men and women had exited the Tabernacle, and in gloomy silence were going their separate ways. Adam recalled Quint’s earlier remarks about soup and hot potatoes and decided that the reverend must have provided a generous supply of both. He hoped the congregation had had some bodily sustenance because they looked as if they were starved of the spiritual variety. Certainly, any they had received had given them little joy or uplift.

  Adam watched as they trudged away from the mission house. Jinkinson was not among them. Their pastor was easy to identify. He stood just outside the door of his chapel, looking more pleased than pained to see his flock depart. The Reverend Elisha Dwight was an imposing young man. In contrast to the stooped and hunched figures leaving his Tabernacle, he was tall and solidly built. His pink cheeks and flourishing beard radiated the kind of health and well-being they would never possess. His black and perfectly fitting suit shone like the finest handiwork of a West End tailor.

  Adam looked down at his own shabby and ill-fitting attire and wondered what the reverend would make of him. However, it was too late to worry that he was inappropriately dressed for a social call. He pushed his way though the departing congregation and approached the Tabernacle’s minister.

  ‘I believe you might be able to help me, sir,’ he said.

  ‘The Lord may help you, my good man, and I am but the poor instrument He uses for His soul-saving work.’

  In their own way, Dwight’s words were encouraging but his expression was one of irritation. He was not happy, his face said, to be accosted like this when his pastoral duties had temporarily come to an end. He looked like a man with his mind more on his dinner than on saving souls.

  ‘I must apologise for the guise in which I present myself,’ Adam said. ‘This is not usually how I dress each Sunday.’

  ‘The Lord in His infinite wisdom looks beneath the outward show and sees the quivering spirit lurking in the very depths of a man’s being.’

  ‘I’m sure He does, but it is not my quivering spirit that troubles me most at the moment.’

  ‘How else, then, may I help you?’ The reverend’s patience was clearly fraying.

  ‘My name is Carver. I am looking for someone. For a Mr Jinkinson of Lincoln’s Inn Fields.’

  The reverend started very slightly. He retained the forced smile which had decorated his face since Adam first saw him but it obviously took an effort to do so. He stared at Adam for a moment, pondering his options, and then gestured behind him.

  ‘Let us enter the dwelling place of the All-Conquering Saviour, Mr Carver, and we will speak further.’

  Two women, dressed all in greys and browns, were still loitering outside the door of the chapel. Despite the plain clothing they had chosen for church attendance, they were very obviously prostitutes. The reverend waved them away. The Tabernacle, it seemed, was now closed for business. The women moved off with obvious reluctance.

  ‘Poor, painted butterflies they are for the rest of the week.’ The reverend had recovered his poise and his taste for fine language. He sighed unctuously as he ushered Adam into his chapel. ‘Lost and polluted souls. Forced to tread the unforgiving stones that pave the streets of this modern Babylon. Condemned to a ceaseless round of dissipation that must end in everlasting damnation.’ He spoke as if he personally would be willing to step in to save such straying shee
p but a more unforgiving judge above might make his intervention useless. Eternal torment could well be their regrettable but unavoidable fate. ‘Only on the Lord’s day and in these humble surrounds do they cast off the gaudy trappings of sin.’

  Adam took the opportunity to examine the humble surrounds of the reverend’s domain. There was little to see. The walls of the Tabernacle were whitewashed and so too was the ceiling. Several rows of cheap wooden chairs stood in the centre. At the far end of the room was a long table. He felt the need to make some comment on the bare chapel but could think of nothing to say.

  ‘Your altar, I presume,’ he said at last, nodding in the direction of the table. It was the wrong remark to make.

  ‘Indeed not, sir.’ Dwight sounded deeply insulted. ‘An altar is an example of Romish mumbo-jumbo. I will not have one here in my holy Tabernacle.’ He cast his eyes heavenwards, perhaps, Adam thought, in search of any further popish practices hiding in the upper part of his chapel. ‘That is our table of communion.’

  Adam was unsure of the distinction between an altar and a table of communion but he chose to say no more on the matter. Instead, he launched himself immediately on the subject of his visit. ‘I believe you know Mr Jinkinson, Reverend.’

  Dwight allowed his eyes to roam around the confines of the building, as though the answer to Adam’s question might be lurking in a corner of the room for him to discover. He seemed to be debating with himself whether or not to make any reply. The appearance of a stranger dressed in tattered fustian and yet speaking in the accents of the educated classes clearly puzzled him. He was curious to learn what Adam wanted but reluctant to commit himself too far by admitting too great an acquaintance with Jinkinson.

  ‘I think I may have run across the gentleman in question from time to time,’ he said cautiously, after a lengthy pause.

  ‘He is one of your…’ Adam wondered what the correct word might be. ‘One of your flock.’

  ‘Most certainly he is not, sir.’ The reverend was swift to deny any pastoral connection with the missing man. ‘Jinkinson is nothing but a blackguard and a rogue.’