A LITTLE AFTER MIDNIGHT.
Opposite the locked gates of Abney Park, two figures stand together in a shop doorway, watching the cemetery’s entrance. The night still possesses a vaporous hint of fog, such that the glow of the nearby tall gas-lights, which line the High Street, seem to glow a muted brown, as if filtered through the medium of a dirty beer bottle. Nonetheless, for all that, the two men can still make out the opposite side of the road from their hiding place, and observe the twin lodges that guard the cemetery gates and courtyard. For, despite its many defects, the suburb of Stoke Newington lies a good four miles north of the Thames, and is not, therefore, subject to the same soot-heavy atmosphere that suffocates the heart of the metropolis.
Sergeant Bartleby shuffles uncomfortably, flapping his arms against the sides of his great-coat.
‘We could be over there, sir, enjoying a shot of something,’ says the sergeant, nodding in the direction of the Three Crowns public house. It is an old-fashioned coaching inn of middling size, its illuminated sign visible in the darkness, not a hundred yards or so distant from where the two men stand.
‘They’ll be closed soon. And, besides, that would hardly serve our purpose, would it, Sergeant?’
Bartleby gives Webb a rather plaintive look, which the latter does not notice.
‘But did we have to come tonight, sir?’
‘No-one waiting for you at home, is there, Sergeant?’
‘No, sir,’ replies Bartleby. ‘You?’
Webb raises his eyebrows at the sergeant’s question.
‘Sorry, sir,’ replies Bartleby, hurriedly. ‘None of my business.’
Webb peers at the gates.
‘We are here tonight, Sergeant, because your news from Mr. Siddons rather intrigued me. And because it brought me back to thinking about this whole business with the body. I wanted to have a walk round the outside by night, to see what opportunities there were for a fellow minded to break in.’
‘And a pleasant walk it was, too, sir,’ says Bartleby, with only the slightest hint of sarcasm.
‘I’m glad you thought so. And what have we learnt thus far, Sergeant?’
‘Sir?’
Webb sighs. ‘We are agreed it must have been done by night, yes?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Why?’
‘I suppose the chap could hardly have excavated a grave in daylight, not unnoticed. Mr. Pellegrin keeps a sharp eye on things.’
‘It seems so. Unless it was one of the grave-diggers,’ says Webb, albeit hesitantly, like a lecturer offering a wholly erroneous thesis, in preparation for demolishing it.
‘But then they’d know how to cover it up properly. Easily done with a bit of turf, I’d have thought. And Pellegrin would have spotted it.’
Webb nods. ‘Quite. That is a fair assumption. Therefore, we suspect it was an intruder, at night. But we’ve been round the cemetery wall, and it seems unlikely.’
‘You’d need a ladder, at least,’ suggests the sergeant.
‘Or a degree of agility – of course, it is not that high. But it is behind the gardens of the local houses, or in plain sight of them. Smart little houses too, with decent tenants, I should imagine. I saw a couple of curtains twitch when I tried that gate. You recall?’
‘Yes, sir,’ replies Bartleby. If he is weary of being addressed in the manner of a schoolboy, he succeeds in concealing it.
‘So our thief would have to be something of a talented burglar.’
‘Unless he lives in one of the houses?’
Webb smiles. ‘Sergeant, you are inspired. Although I’d think in most cases one would run the risk of being seen by one’s neighbours. Still it is a possibility. Nonetheless, I think we are rather obliged to make trial of the night-watchman. Ask any professional thief, Sergeant, and they’ll tell you the swiftest way to “break a drum” is through the servants. The same applies here.’
‘You aren’t proposing we stand here all night, sir?’
Webb shakes his head. ‘I don’t think so. Now, be a good man and pop over to the pub and get a bottle of brandy, will you, Sergeant? Large.’
Bartleby smiles with surprised delight at the thought of a warming glass of liquor. A sharp look from the inspector, however, returns his features to their previous composure.
‘It isn’t for us, is it?’ says Bartleby.
Webb shakes his head.
‘Won’t be a moment, sir,’ says the sergeant ruefully. He begins to cross the street but, putting his hands in his pockets, he turns around and addresses Webb once more.
‘You might want to lend us a couple of bob, sir.’
‘You took your time, Sergeant,’ says Webb, as Bartleby returns to the doorway, some ten minutes later, a bottle in hand.
‘They’re calling last orders in there, sir. Damn busy.’
‘I hope you didn’t indulge yourself, Sergeant?’
‘Never on duty, sir.’
‘Hmm.’
Bartleby looks expectantly at the inspector.
‘What is it, man?’ asks Webb.
‘Aren’t we going across then, sir?’
‘We’ll wait until the pub’s closed.’
Bartleby looks dejectedly back at the Three Crowns, and, to keep warm, stamps his feet.
It is gone half-past midnight when the regulars of the Three Crowns exit on to the street. Most exhibit a degree of inebriation either in their gait or in the raucous shouts they address to departing companions, as they disappear into the mist. There is one man, however, who shouts something in the direction of the cemetery’s lodge, where the night-watchman’s lamp is visible through the square little building’s small windows.
‘All right, Jem?’
There is no reply.
‘All right?’ repeats the man. It is not a pleasant greeting, and sounds more like a taunt. A figure appears at the door to the lodge; an old man wrapped in a coat that looks far too large for him.
‘Keeping warm?’ says the man outside the gates.
From the policemen’s position upon the opposite side of the road, the watchman’s reply is inaudible.
‘Well, you’ll be the only one there what is, won’t you, eh?’ shouts the drunken man, waving at the watchman and bidding him goodbye. The watchman does not so much wave back as dismiss his interlocutor with a swiping movement, perhaps indicative of the manner in which he would prefer to say farewell – were he upon the other side of the gate, and thirty years younger. At length, however, peering through the gate to ensure his tormentor has departed, he returns to his post.
Webb looks back at the pub.
‘I think that’s the last of them. Come on then, Sergeant, give me that bottle and follow my lead.’
Bartleby nods, and the two men cross the street and walk along to the cemetery gates, where Webb motions for them to stop.
‘Where was it, again, Bill?’ says Webb, loudly, apropos of nothing, in an accent not entirely his own.
Bartleby looks startled at this familiar form of address, but does his best to reply. ‘Err, where was what?’
‘The house. Where did you say it was? Ellis Road, was it? Or was it Eltham?’
Sergeant Bartleby widens his eyes, as if struck by a sudden understanding. ‘Ah, err, Elton, wasn’t it, Charlie?’
Webb, in turn, raises his eyebrows, mouthing the word ‘Charlie’ with a rather interrogative expression. Bartleby shrugs.
‘No,’ continues Webb, with feeling, ‘that weren’t it, not at all. Blow me, if we ain’t been walking round here an hour or more.’
Before the sergeant can expand upon this theme, the sound of the lodge door opening, on the other side of the gates, causes the two men to turn about. The watchman, a man about sixty years old, steps into the courtyard with his lantern.
‘You there, what are you rowing about? Off with you!’
‘We’d go, mate, if we knew where we were going,’ says Webb, in a decent impression of inebriated bonhomie. ‘A pal of ours lives round here. Do you know, what’s it called now, Eltham Road?’
‘Ellis?’ suggests Bartleby.
‘No,’ says the old man.
‘Elton then?’
‘Never heard of it. New road, is it?’
‘Oh yes,’ replies Webb, ‘he said it were a beauty of a place, nice new house, didn’t he, Bill? We were s’posed to be seeing Fred and the Missus for supper, see, but we had a couple in that house just down there, the Crowns or something, and then . . . well, it’s a queer thing, ain’t it, Bill?’
Bartleby nods. ‘Can’t recall the name. You sure you don’t know it?’
‘How should I know it if you don’t?’ asks the old man.
‘Best we head home, Billy boy,’ says Webb. ‘Do you reckon we’ll find a cab to the Borough, mate?’
The old man shrugs his shoulders. ‘You might have to walk it.’
‘Walk!’ Webb exclaims. ‘In this weather? I’ll be frozen solid. And I’ll cop it when I get home.’
Bartleby notices the bottle of brandy, which Webb dangles rather ostentatiously in his hand. ‘Bloody waste of that brandy, too.’
‘We best have a taste of it on the way, I suppose,’ says Webb. ‘Damned shame – I was looking forward to taking a drop, civil like.’
The old man eyes the bottle. ‘Brandy, you say?’
‘Best bottle they had – waste of good money.’
‘Well,’ says the old man thoughtfully, ‘if you’re cold, I’ve got a fire going in here.’
‘Fire? Oh, but we couldn’t possibly take advantage, could we, Charlie?’ says Bartleby. Webb, however, gives him a brief, threatening glance.
‘You’ve a Christian spirit, sir,’ says Webb. ‘Here, now what say we share a drop of this liquor between us?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, when I’m on duty . . .’ says the old man.
‘No harm in it,’ suggests Bartleby.
‘Well, I suppose I’ve a couple of glasses knocking about somewhere,’ says the old man, as he walks to the gate, and undoes the padlock. ‘Here, come through.’
‘Very kind of you, mate, very kind,’ mutters Webb.
Decimus Webb pours another glass of brandy, as the old man reclines in his chair, in front of the small hearth in the cemetery lodge.
‘Are you here every night?’ asks the inspector, allowing himself a sip of liquor.
‘Aye,’ says the watchman, following Webb’s example, and downing a gulp of brandy, ‘twenty years I’ve been here, never missed a night, except when the Missus died.’
‘Well, I’m sorry to hear that,’ says Webb.
‘No need; seventeen year ago that were.’
‘Is she buried here?’
The old man nods. ‘Aye. Bless her. 17606. F07.’
‘Beg your pardon?’ says Bartleby.
‘Her number. That’s her number in the register – I memorialised it in my head.’
Webb nods. ‘I expects the work ain’t much trouble, in a place like this?’
The old man snorts, gesturing towards the cemetery proper. ‘No, they don’t give me much trouble, they don’t.’
Webb smiles. ‘No, I’d hope not. Still, I think it’d give me the creeps.’
‘What’s your trade?’ asks the old man.
‘Horses,’ suggests Bartleby. Webb looks askance at his colleague.
The old man shakes his head. ‘Never liked horses myself.’
‘It ain’t haunted then?’ says Webb, with a grin.
‘Nah,’ says the old man. ‘Or if it is, they keep clear of me. I tell you, though, I did have a scare, not a few weeks back.’
‘What was that?’
‘A gentleman, as was locked in at night. Found him wandering around, all lost, by the chapel – now, I thought he was a bloody ghost! Said he’d lost track of time, looking at the graves. In the dark – I ask you! So I said to him, “You’ll lose track of your bloody neck, sir, if you fall into an open hole!”’
‘You’re right,’ says Webb. ‘A gentleman, you say? Still, I expect that happens a lot.’
‘That were the queer thing; I always walk round twice, to check, afore we locks the gates at nightfall. But I’d missed him, see? A right scare. A fellow could lose his place over a thing like that, too. Here,’ continues the old man, suddenly confidential, ‘keep that dark, eh?’
‘Don’t you worry, mate – we won’t blab. Here, have another glass. Steady your nerves. Was he alone, then, this man? I expect you marched him straight out, eh?’
‘That’s what I said, didn’t I?’
‘I don’t suppose he had a bag or some such?’
‘That’s a queer question,’ says the old man, frowning.
‘Did he though?’
‘How old was he? Do you remember what he looked like? Well dressed?’
‘Smart enough. I don’t recollect; it were dark. Middling sort of fellow. Here, now, what is all this?’
‘Nothing at all,’ says Webb, soothingly, ‘just curious. Billy, I reckon we should be off. It’s a long walk home, eh?’
The watchman lets Webb and Bartleby through the cemetery gates, and then locks them. If he has a suspicion in his mind as to the authenticity of his visitors, it is secondary to his desire to continue sipping brandy in front of a warm fire. Webb, meanwhile, walks briskly along the pavement, a look of satisfaction on his face.
‘What did you make of that, then?’ asks the sergeant.
‘Well, I’d say it’s a good chance that “gentleman” was our man, Sergeant, even though our friend can’t tell us much about him. Can’t be certain, of course. Let’s say he hides until the place is shut, digs up the grave, then . . . well, I suppose there’s still a problem, isn’t there?’
‘He left without the body?’ says Bartleby.
‘Quite. It looks like it, unless of course he had an accomplice. But then, this is what puzzles me: if it was something in the grave he wanted, where did he put the bones? Why not bury them again? But if he wanted the body, why not take it?’
‘Maybe he stashed them somewhere, and came back for them.’
‘Charming thought, isn’t it?’ says Webb. ‘Very well – tomorrow, come back and interview the fellow – see if you can get a better description when he’s sober; see if he remembers you for a start; he may not be particularly reliable, if tonight is any guide. And take a thorough look around the grounds – take a couple of men with you, plain clothes – and make sure there’s nothing we’ve missed.’
‘Like what?’
‘The remains. I suppose a cemetery might be the best place to hide them.’
Bartleby nods. ‘Are we really walking back into town, sir?’
‘Unless you know a means of summoning a cab, Sergeant, I’d say we are. Why?’
‘Just a shame you left the rest of that brandy behind, sir.’