“Thank you for coming with me,” I said belatedly, again regretting how I’d coerced Anne. Our felicitous reception at Smith, Elder amp; Company mattered much less to her than to me, and the event had been an unpleasant ordeal for her. “Tonight’s visit from Mr. Smith and his family should be far less unsettling than what we’ve already endured; and fortunately, we have time to refresh ourselves, because my head aches as if hammers are beating inside my skull.”
We were on the verge of entering the Chapter Coffee House, an ancient inn, when a shriek rang out. “What was that?” I said, startled.
More screams followed, alternating with cries of “Help! Help!”
“Someone is in trouble,” I said. I started down the row, seeking to discern the source of the cries.
“No, dear Charlotte!” Anne held me back. “It’s too dangerous. You don’t know what may happen.”
However, I was a parson’s eldest daughter, accustomed to serving when someone was in need. “Go inside the Chapter Coffee House and fetch help,” I ordered Anne, ere I hurried away.
The cries, now incoherent and desperate, issued from an alley between two warehouses. Halting at its entrance, I peered inside. There, in the dimness that exuded a loathsome stench of sewers, two figures struggled. Alarmed, I squinted at them, but they appeared mere shadows to me. One was a woman clad in a bonnet and full skirt; the other, a man in a brimmed hat. The man slammed the woman against a wall, muttering to her in low, angry tones. Her hands beat at him, and he grappled with her. She sobbed.
“Let her go!” I cried.
The man thrust himself hard against the woman. A scream of agony burst from her; then she was silent. He glanced towards me, and I glimpsed his face, pale and indistinct above his dark garments. He sprang away from the woman. As she crumpled to the ground, he dashed to the alley’s opposite end, where he vanished into a blur of sunshine.
I hurried into the alley. The brick walls gave off a dank coolness; my shoes splashed in filthy puddles between the rough cobblestones. I bent over the woman. “Are you all right, madam?” I said, breathless from excitement and fear.
She lay immobile. Blood in great, wet, crimson quantity stained the bodice of her grey frock, and a wooden-handled knife protruded from between her ribs. Gasping, I recoiled; I clasped my hand over my mouth and retched. My heart’s thudding reverberated inside my aching head as my horrified gaze traveled to the woman’s face. Framed by a bonnet and tousled blond hair, it was white as paper, the mouth open, the eyes staring sightlessly. The chill mask of death had fixed its terrified expression. Fresh shock assailed me as I recognized those features.
The dead woman was Isabel White.
5
I stumbled out of the alley and into Anne’s embrace. She had brought servants from the Chapter Coffee House, and they fetched a constable, who told me to wait while he examined the corpse of Isabel White. The activity drew a noisy crowd that filled Paternoster Row, and they gawked at me as I sat outside the alley upon a chair someone had brought. Waves of nausea, trembling, and faintness besieged me. I had never seen anyone murdered, and the experience inflicted upon me a severe distress. Anne stood beside me, offering silent comfort. I closed my eyes, yet could not expunge from my memory the images of the blood, the knife, and worst of all, Isabel White’s lifeless stare. Desperately fighting the urge to vomit, I wished myself home in the peaceful isolation of Haworth.
The constable emerged from the alley and stood before me. Clad in indigo trousers and a matching coat with shiny buttons down the front, he had sharp blue eyes in a face that reminded me of a fox. Rusty sideburns protruded from beneath his tall black hat.
“I’m Police Constable Dixon,” he said.
I’d had but one previous experience with the law, when a sheriff’s officer had come to the parsonage to order that Branwell either pay his debts or go to prison. I feared the power of the law, and the Metropolitan Police seemed as menacing a breed as the London thieves, swindlers, and cutthroats they were sworn to apprehend.
“Your name and place of residence, please?” Constable Dixon penciled the information I gave him into a notebook. “Visitin’ town, then, Miss Bronte? A pity you should witness a crime.” His manner was sympathetic but businesslike. “Now I know as this’s been a terrible shock for you, but we need your help catchin’ the individual what killed that poor woman. Tell me everything as happened.”
I nervously eyed the truncheon he wore at his waist. The crowd listened while I described what I’d seen, and the constable recorded it. He said, “Did you get a look at the perpetrator, miss?”
Reliving the incident, I trembled as I shook my head. “The alley was dim, and I am nearsighted. But he wore dark clothes and a dark hat.” I suggested timidly, “Shouldn’t someone go looking for him?”
“Well, now, miss, London’s a big city, and there’s plenty of men what fit that general description,” the constable said. “Can you recall anything else about ’im?”
I exerted my memory, in vain. “No, sir. But I did know the murdered woman.” Interest stirred the crowd. “Her name was Isabel White.”
“A friend o’ yours, then?” Constable Dixon said, writing.
“Not exactly,” I said, although my sense of comradeship with Isabel made me feel that I had lost a friend. Tears and sour bile rose in my throat, and I gulped them down. “My sister and I rode on a train to London with her.” I described Isabel’s strange behavior, adding, “Perhaps the person she feared followed her here, then killed her.”
“And would you know who that person might be?”
“Miss White didn’t say.”
“This is an interestin’ theory, miss,” Constable Dixon said, his polite tone laced with condescension. “But likely this was a robbery, and a thief killed the lady because she resisted when ’e tried to take ’er pocketbook. ’E must have got it anyway-there wasn’t nothin’ on ’er.”
“But I cannot believe he was a common thief,” I protested. “He looked to be dressed like a gentleman.”
“Ah.” Constable Dixon nodded sagely. “Then ’e must’ve been a swell mobsman.” Seeing my puzzled expression, he explained, “Swell mobsmen is criminals who get themselves up fancy and loiter about the banks. When they sees someone take out lots of money, they follows the person and robs ’im. Likely, that’s what happened to Miss White.” The constable closed his notebook.
I was unconvinced. Although I knew nothing about solving crimes, and I recognized the audacity and danger of telling the law what to do, I felt compelled to say, “Miss White told me that she was governess in the house of a Mr. Joseph Lock of Birmingham. Perhaps he could help you identify her killer.”
Irritation flushed Constable Dixon’s face. “Perhaps he could, miss; then again, perhaps not.” His expression deemed me a foolish, hysterical female. “The police ’ave enough to do without chasin’ all over England.”
“Then you won’t investigate Miss White’s death any further?” I said, alarmed by his apparent intention to dismiss the murder as the work of a stranger impossible to locate. Tremors wracked my body, Anne blotted perspiration from my forehead, and I feared I would be sick at any moment.
“I shall refer the matter to my superiors,” Constable Dixon said pompously, “and if they think any investigatin’ is in order, it shall be done. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Miss Bronte?” He touched the brim of his hat in farewell, adding, “You’d best get yourself to bed. You’re lookin’ a bit poorly.”
I must interrupt my account of what happened to me after Isabel White’s death and direct attention towards another segment in the tapestry of my story. Reader, look away from poor Charlotte Bronte huddled on her chair, and focus your mind’s eye upon the crowd in Paternoster Row. Do you discern one man who observes the proceedings with particular interest? He is perhaps thirty-five years of age, his lean, strong figure clad in dark coat, trousers, and hat. The features of his lean, swarthy face have the proud sharpness of a falcon’s; they are framed by unruly black hair. Do you see his eyes-a brilliant, crystalline grey in hue-fixed hard upon me?