Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose [Stories]

Bertie and the Fire Brigade

One of the favourite pastimes of the British while reclining in a hammock is to think up worthwhile jobs for the Prince of Wales. Everyone from the Sovereign downwards has his two-pennyworth, regardless of the fact that most of the occupations suggested are utterly unsuitable for me. I can’t imagine how the idea got abroad that time hangs heavy on my hands. Between laying foundation-stones and receiving visiting Heads of State, I have precious little time for my social obligations, let alone earning “an honest crust,” as one newspaper impertinently proposed.

However, since the rest of the nation indulges in this sport, why shouldn’t I? I’ll tell you how I could have earned a handsome living if circumstances allowed. As a detective. Given the opportunity, I would certainly have risen to high rank in the police, for my deductive skills as an amateur sleuth-hound are well attested, if not well known. And I could also have made a decent show as a fireman.

Yes, a fireman.

The great British public is largely ignorant of my pyro-exploits, as I call them, my adventures with the gallant officers of the London Fire Brigade. I don’t mind confiding in these memoirs that I have attended fires all over London for the past twenty years. Frequently — when not attending to affairs of state — I can be found enjoying a game of billiards at the fire station in Chandos Street with my old chum, the Duke of Sutherland, another gentleman fire-fighter, while we wait for the alarm to be sounded. We both have the kit, you know: full uniform, with helmet, boots and axe. Oh, how I relish the ride on the engine, bell jangling, horses at the gallop!

Are you intrigued? Then I shall tell you more. I once triumphantly combined my skills as detective and fireman. It happened in the summer of 1870 when I was twenty-nine and “under fire” myself, so to speak. There had been some deplorable publicity in February of that year when I was called as a witness in a divorce case, to emerge, I may add, with my character unsullied, utterly unsullied. The husband who had been so misguided as to name me and several other gentlemen had his petition dismissed on the grounds that his wife was insane and could not be a party to the suit. The wretched newspapers, not content with the result, mischievously set out to stoke up republican sentiments. I remember shortly after being hissed in the theatre and booed at Ascot. At the races. Mind, when a horse of mine won the last race, the same fickle crowd cheered me to the echo. I remember raising my hat to them and calling out, “You seem to be in a better temper now than you were this morning, damn you!”

A few days later, on the Friday, I was at my club, the Marlborough, enjoying a short respite from affairs of state in a foursome of skittles, when a message came for Captain Shaw, my partner for the evening. A fire had taken hold in Villiers Street, a mere quarter of a mile away. You must have heard of Shaw, the intrepid Chief of the London Fire Brigade, immortalized by W. S. Gilbert in Iolanthe and stigmatized by Lord Colin Campbell in the most notorious of all divorce cases. Personally, I always had a high regard for Eyre Shaw, whatever may or may not have happened with Lady Colin on the dining-room carpet of the Campbell abode in Cadogan Place. The man is a dedicated fire-fighter, so dedicated, in fact, that he chooses to live beside the fire station in Southwark Bridge Road, a particularly unsalubrious area. His house, which I have visited, is most ingeniously fitted with speaking-tubes in every room so that Shaw can be promptly informed of fires breaking out.

Immediately news of the Villiers Street fire was conveyed, Shaw apologized for interrupting our game and called for the helmet which he keeps at the club for just such an emergency.

“Sir, would you care—”

“I should take it as a personal affront not to be included,” I informed him.

Ideally, I like to ride to a fire in full kit on the running-board of the engine, but on this occasion we had no time to call at Chandos Street to dress the part, so we hailed a cab and made the best speed we could down Pall Mall to Trafalgar Square and into Villiers Street by way of the Strand.

An awesome scene confronted us. Villiers Street is a narrow, dingy thoroughfare beside Charing Cross Station, sloping quite steeply down to the Thames. It is always cluttered with coffee-stalls, whelk counters, hot potato-cans and wood-and-canvas structures festooned with gimcrack rubbish, and this evening the news of the fire had brought hundreds of sight-seers off the Strand, the station and adjacent streets. The naphtha flares mounted on the stalls showed us a daunting spectacle from our elevated view in the four-wheeler, wave upon wave of toppers, bowlers and greasy caps.

The cabman confided his doubt whether he would succeed in moving the vehicle through such a throng. The feat would not have been impossible, but it would have been deucedly slow in execution, so we elected to climb out and make our own way. Fortunately, the Chief Fire Officer is instantly recognizable when he dons his helmet and to repeated cries of “Make way for Captain Shaw!” we progressed down Villiers Street like Moses through the Dead Sea. As for me, I held on to my hat and followed close with eyes down and collar up, or we should never have got through.

Bright orange flames were leaping merrily at the windows of a large building almost at the bottom of the street and the Chandos Street lads were already at work with two engines. The proximity of the Thames meant that a floating engine had also been deployed. Shaw at once sought out the man directing operations, Superintendent Flanagan, and established what was happening. I knew Flanagan passably well as a competent officer who could handle a hose more expertly than a billiard cue. Like Shaw himself, he was Irish, more than a touch pleased with himself (a weakness of the shamrock fraternity), but conscientious and a respected leader of men. I’d once met his wife at Chandos Street, and a prettier, more beguiling creature than Dymphna Flanagan never crossed the Irish Sea. She had that combination of raven hair and lily-white skin that is unique to Irish women. You can tell the impression she made on me because I seriously thought afterwards of suggesting to some London hostess that she added the Flanagans to the guest-list on an evening I was coming for supper. Finally I abandoned this intention. I was willing to put up with Flanagan’s brash manners for an evening with his winsome wife, but I felt that I couldn’t inflict him on my fellow-guests.

“Is anyone inside?” was Shaw’s first question.

“No, it’s empty,” Flanagan told him as confidently as if the house were his own.

“You’re sure?”

“Sure as the Creed, Captain. The owner died last Friday. There was a manservant and he was dismissed the next day.”

“Who told you this?” I asked.

“One of the stall-holders, sir. They miss nothing.”

“You say the owner died. The corpse...?”

“...was moved to the mortuary the same evening, sir.”

“Who was he?”

“A retired bookbinder, name of Millichip. It’s a pity he was moved from the house.”

“Why on earth do you say that?”

“Curious to relate, Mr Millichip was Chairman of the London Cremation League.”

“The what?”

He repeated it for me. “They advocate disposal of the dead by burning.”

“What a heathenish idea!” I commented. “The Church would never sanction it.”

“Ashes to ashes, sir.”

Damned impertinence. I wish you could have heard the uppish way he said it, for the tone would have told you volumes about his bumptiousness. Captain Shaw quite properly put a stop to this morbid exchange. “If you’ll pardon me, sir, you’d better redirect your hoses, Mr Flanagan. The fire is starting to take hold on the top floor.”

Shaw’s assessment was correct. It never ceases to amaze me how swiftly a fire can spread. In spite of the best efforts of the crews, huge forks of flame ripped through the upper storey in minutes, sending showers of sparks into the night sky.

“What the deuce burns as fiercely as that?” I asked, but Shaw had left my side to assist in the work of raising a fire-escape ladder, the better to direct jets of water onto the roof, where slates were already cascading off the rafters. I should have realized that a bookbinder might possess samples of his work, for it later transpired that the top floor was practically lined with books.

But I wasn’t there, as most bystanders were, merely to goggle. I set to, and organized a human chain to convey buckets of water from the river as an auxiliary to the pumps. I doubt whether any of my shabby helpers recognized me, but they deferred at once to the authority represented by my silk hat and cane.

For upwards of an hour, we struggled to gain ascendancy. The falling slates became a considerable hazard, and I was obliged to borrow a helmet from a fireman who readily conceded that my skull was more precious than his own. As so often happens, just as we were getting control of the fire, reinforcements arrived from Holborn and Fleet Street. The stop, to employ a term we fire-fighters use, came twenty minutes before midnight. The house was a mere shell by that time.

Wearily, we senior fire-fighters gathered by the nearest coffee-stall and slaked our thirst while the firemen were winding up the hoses. Flanagan looked ready to drop and I told him so.

“I’m feeling better than I look, sir,” he said.

Firemen work longer hours than the police or the army. Even a Superintendent takes only one day off each fortnight as a matter of right. Of course he slips away when things are quiet, but he is constantly on call.

“What exercises me about this fire,” I remarked to Eyre Shaw, “is how it started. If no one was inside, what could have set it off?”

He nodded, taking my point. The wily Captain Shaw hasn’t much faith in the theory of spontaneous combustion.

He said an investigation would be set in train first thing next morning. I offered to take part, if not first thing, then as soon as my other engagements allowed.

My dear wife, the Princess of Wales, had retired by the time I returned to Marlborough House, or she would certainly have passed a comment on my appearance. As it happens, we have separate bedrooms, so it was not until breakfast that she tackled me. By then, of course, I’d bathed and changed my clothes and really believed she would have no clue how I’d spent the previous evening. She doesn’t altogether approve of my pyro-exploits. Such is my optimism that I’d forgotten that Alix has a keener sense of smell than your average bloodhound. More than once it has been my undoing over breakfast, and not always due to smoke fumes.

“You really ought not to spend so much time with the Fire Brigade, Bertie. I can smell it in your hair.”

“Oh?”

“If your Mama had any idea, she would be deeply shocked.”

“Mama is shocked if I cross the road,” said I.

“Where was the fire this time?”

I gave Alix an account of my evening and told her about the advocate of cremation who had unluckily been removed to the mortuary before his house burnt down. “If his timing had been better, he’d have had his wish. I wonder if one of his supporters put a match to the place in the belief that the body was still inside.”

Alix commented, “It would be rather extreme, burning down an entire house and putting Charing Cross Station at risk.”

“True, but someone must have started the fire. The servant wasn’t there. He was dismissed the day after Millichip died.”

“Who by?”

“One of the family, I gather.”

“Well, the servant must have been unhappy about losing his job so suddenly,” Alix mused aloud, and then added emphatically, “He came back with a match to deprive the family of their inheritance.”

It’s often said and often demonstrated that women are illogical. Obviously I married a notable exception. I wouldn’t have thought of the servant as an arsonist, but Alix was onto him already.

I’m in the habit of taking a constitutional at 12.15, and that morning I directed my steps to the site of the fire, where I discovered Superintendent Flanagan and his deputy, First Class Engineer Henry Locke, in earnest conversation with a tall young man dressed in mourning.

“Your Highness, may I present Mr. Guy Millichip, the son of the late owner of this house?”

The young man’s grip was clammy to the touch. You can tell a lot from a handshake. I should know; I’ve shaken more hands than you ever will, I’ll warrant, gentle reader. A clammy hand goes with a doubtful character.

“My condolences,” I said. “All this must be a fearful shock, coming so soon after your father’s passing. Was he a sick man?”

“No, Your Royal Highness. It came out of the blue.”

“A sudden death?” My detective brain was already working on possibilities.

“Yes, sir. His heart stopped.”

“Isn’t that always the case?” said Flanagan in his irritating Irish lilt.

Millichip glared. “I meant to say that the doctor diagnosed a sudden heart attack. The post mortem has since confirmed it.”

“I see. And was anyone with your father when he died?”

“Only Rudkin, the manservant.”

“Where were you at the time?”

“Of Father’s death? In Reigate, where I live. I hadn’t seen him for over a year. When I noticed the announcement in The Times, I came to London directly.”

“And dismissed Rudkin directly?”

“He’ll find other work. I gave him an excellent character, sir.”

“Where is he to be found?”

“Rudkin? I have no idea. He resided here.”

“Until he was dismissed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And now he has no address? You consigned him to the streets?”

“I had no use for his services and no certainty of being able to pay his wages, sir.”

Here, Flanagan’s deputy, Engineer Locke, observed, “You’ll inherit something, surely? Aren’t you the only son?”

Young Millichip shook his head. “I don’t expect to get a brass farthing. Father made it abundantly clear that the entire proceeds of his estate would go to the London Cremation League.” He spoke without rancour, as if remarking on the weather. Then he showed himself to be human by adding with a slight smile, “Their windfall has been somewhat reduced by the fire.”

“Has the will been read?”

“Not yet, sir. The family solicitor will reveal the contents after the funeral, but I know what’s in it. Father told me months ago, when he drew it up. That’s why we fell out. I was incensed. It was the last conversation I had with him. Those cremation people will blue it all on beer. They’re Bohemians for the most part. Writers and artists. Trollope, Millais, Tenniel. People like that. They meet once a month in some plush hotel in the West End with no prospect of achieving their aims.”

“If it isn’t impertinent to ask, how much was your father worth?”

“A cool three hundred pounds, sir.”

“That’s a lot of beer.”

When the young man had left us, Flanagan pre-empted me by commenting, “I recommend that we look for signs of arson.”

“I should have thought that goes without saying,” said I in a bored voice. “Clearly the servant must be found and questioned at once.”

“The servant?” said he, as if I’d named the Archbishop of Canterbury. “I was about to suggest that Millichip must have set the place alight.”

“Millichip? But why?”

“To deprive the Cremation League of its legacy. He’s a very embittered young man, sir.”

I wasn’t persuaded. However, we had much to do. I proceeded to examine the building with Flanagan and Locke. The ash was thick on the ground, but so are shoeblacks at Charing Cross, so I didn’t hesitate. It’s fascinating to look at a gutted building with a man of Flanagan’s experience. He had no difficulty in finding the seat of the fire, which was in the basement, close to the street, and he rapidly concluded that arson was the most likely cause. By picking at fragments of ash and sniffing his finger and thumb he was able to inform us that a paraffin-soaked rag had been used as tinder, probably set alight and pushed through a broken window by the arsonist.

“So simple, if a person is really bent on destroying a house,” he said. “We had a similar case two weeks ago, didn’t we, Henry?”

“That is correct, sir,” Locke confirmed without much animation, for it presently emerged that the Friday in question had been his day off duty and he had missed a spectacular blaze. As he’d also missed the Villiers Street fire for the same reason, Henry Locke had every right to feel deprived. Most of the calls the fire service deal with are chimney fires, which can be very tedious.

“An empty house in Tavistock Street went up like a beacon,” Flanagan explained for my benefit. “We fought it for three and a half hours. It belonged to the eminent zoologist, Professor Carson. He left on a trip to the Amazon a couple of days before. The police are investigating.”

“How could I have missed it?” I mused aloud, then remembered that a supper engagement had taken me to Gatti’s restaurant on the night in question and to a private address thereafter. I was bending my efforts to raise a fire that night, so to speak, not to dowse one. “Well, the police have a straightforward task in this case. I shall instruct them to detain Rudkin, the servant.”

I spoke confidently, showing my contempt for Flanagan’s theory that Millichip was the arsonist and incidentally omitting to mention my reservations about the efficiency of the Metropolitan Police. Straightforward their task may have been, but in the event the raw lobsters required five days to find Rudkin, in cheap lodgings in the shabby district of Notting Hill. I had him brought to Chandos Street Fire Station for questioning on the following Thursday.

James Rudkin may have looked the worse for wear from his new way of life, but in deportment and speech he was still the gentleman’s gentleman, with airs of refinement. I suppose he was forty-five years of age, dark-haired, with mutton-chop whiskers going grey. He claimed to know nothing whatsoever about the fire. “This is calamitous. When did you say it occurred, Your Royal Highness? Last Friday? Was there serious damage?”

“Never mind that,” I told him, eager to catch him out, for Flanagan and Shaw were sitting beside me, and I wanted to prove a point or two.

“Where were you last Friday evening?”

“Me?” He piped the word as if to imply that anything connected with himself was unworthy of consideration. “You wish to know where I was, Your Royal Highness?”

Indifferent to the wretched fellow’s play-acting, I tapped the ash from my cigar and waited.

Rudkin hesitated, apparently collecting his thoughts. “Last Friday evening. Let me see. Oh, yes. I was at South Kensington, at the Art Training School.”

“The Art School?” I said in total disbelief. “You’re an artist? I can’t believe that. How could you afford the fees?”

“Oh, I wasn’t required to pay a fee, sir. They paid me. I was, em, sitting.”

“Sitting?”

“Well, reclining, in point of fact, sir. The School advertised for models and I applied. It was force of necessity. I needed the money to pay for a night’s lodging.”

“I follow you now. What time was this?”

“The class lasted from 7 to 9 p.m., sir, but I had to report early to remove my clothes.”

“Good Lord! You were posing in the buff?”

“It was the life class, sir.”

I turned to Eyre Shaw. “At what hour did the fire break out?”

He coughed nervously. “Approximately 8.30, sir. Certainly no later.”

That evening, I told the Princess of Wales that her theory about the servant had been confounded and in a manner acutely embarrassing to me personally. “Rashly I asked the fellow if he could prove this extraordinary alibi of his and he said there must be twenty drawings of his anatomy from every possible angle. He couldn’t swear that every one would be a good likeness, but I was welcome to enquire at the school. Imagine me — asking to examine drawings of a naked man.”

“It wouldn’t be advisable, Bertie.”

“Don’t worry, my dear. I may have been a trouble to you on occasions, but I’ll not be caught looking at drawings of a butler in his birthday suit. I’m just relating the facts so that you can see how mistaken you were. Rudkin cannot possibly be the arsonist. It was such a persuasive theory when you mentioned it.”

“I’m not infallible, Bertie.”

I sniffed. “Regrettably, it seems that Flanagan — that bombastic Irishman from Chandos Street — is the one who is infallible. Young Millichip put a match to the house to prevent it from passing to the London Cremation League. I shall suggest to the police that they arrest him in the morning. Frankly, I’m not interested in questioning him a second time.”

Alix continued with her sewing.

“It’s a great pity,” I maundered on, more to myself than Alix. “I should have liked to have solved a case of arson. I shall have to bide my time, I suppose. My chance will come. It’s becoming a common crime — every other Friday, in fact.”

“Speak up, Bertie.”

Alix is somewhat deaf.

“I said arson happens every other Friday. A slight exaggeration. A house in Tavistock Street three weeks ago, and the Villiers Street fire last week.”

She stopped her sewing and gave me a penetrating look. “You didn’t mention two cases of arson when we discussed the case.”

“At that time, my dear, I hadn’t heard about the Tavistock Street fire. I missed it. I was, em, otherwise engaged that evening... putting the world to rights with the Dean of St Paul’s, if I remember correctly.”

“Two houses set alight?” said Alix.

“Two.”

“On Fridays?”

“Yes.”

“Both started maliciously?”

“Apparently, yes.”

“Was anyone hurt?”

“No, no. Both houses were uninhabited.”

“Then let us suppose both fires were started by one individual. How would he — or she — have known that no one was inside?”

I said, “I’m damned if I know. One individual? What makes you say that?”

She ignored my question. “Presumably, the late Mr Millichip’s death was reported in the newspapers.”

“That is true,” said I. “His son read it in The Times.”

“And do you know the identity of the owner of the Tavistock Street house?”

“That was Carson, the explorer. He left for the Amazon three weeks ago.”

“Was his expedition reported in The Times?”

“It may well have been. He’s a famous man. I’ll speak to the editor and find out, if you think it’s important.”

She gave a slight shrug and lowered her eyes to the needlework. Poor Alix. She never knows whether to encourage me in my investigations. But she’d said enough to stoke up my analytical processes again. I asked myself whether it was conceivable that some wicked arsonist was lighting fires at random. No, not at random, but by reference to The Times. If so, it would be devilish difficult to identify him. What facts did we have? He was a reader of The Times, presumably a Londoner. He selected houses that were empty and he favoured Friday evenings for his fire-raising. Would there be another fire this week, or next? If so, where?

There was a panic below stairs when I asked the head butler for the entire week’s issues of The Times. Normally I never see a copy that has not been freshly ironed and then they tend to get creased and sprinkled with cigar-ash in the course of my perusal. Lord knows what happens after I’ve finished with them. One thing was certain: the prospect of retrieving six copies and getting them fit for inspection caused my head butler’s eyes to resemble coach-lamps, even after I assured him that ironing would not be necessary. In the end, six immaculate newspapers were supplied from heaven knows where and I set to work compiling a list of recently vacated properties. Within a short time I realized the scale of the task I’d set myself. The deaths column alone ran to fifty or sixty names each day. I therefore confined myself to names in the vicinity of Chandos Street Fire Station, where the two previous fires had taken place. At the end of two hours, I had a list of twelve residences that I considered prime candidates for arson.

I was so pleased with my detective work that I showed Alix the list. Somewhat to my surprise, she laughed. “Oh, Bertie, what will you do now — travel the district on a bicycle keeping watch on all these houses?”

“That isn’t the object,” I explained. “If one of them goes up in flames tomorrow night, I shall know for certain that my theory is correct. The arsonist selects the houses from The Times.”

“And then you can make another list next week,” said Alix with a lamentable lack of sensitivity.

“What else do you propose?” said I chillingly.

“I make no claim to be a detective, but I would look for a motive, my dear.”

“It’s all very fine to talk in such terms,” I protested, “but why would anyone put a match to a house? To see a damned good fire. Believe it or not, there are people who derive a morbid pleasure from watching a property go up in flames.”

“Oh, I believe it, Bertie.”

“They are known as pyromaniacs.”

She regarded me steadily. “Yes.”

“Then what is the use of looking for a motive?”

“There may be a more practical motive.”

“I doubt it,” said I.

But later, in bed — my own bed — I paid Alix’s last observation the compliment of considering it at more length. Suppose there was a practical motive. Why set light to a building if it isn’t for the undoubted satisfaction of seeing it ablaze? It wasn’t as if some insurance swindle was involved in either incident, so far as I was aware. And there was no attempt to put anyone in personal danger; in fact, the reverse was true. The arsonist appeared to have gone to some trouble to select an empty house and so avoid an accident.

In the small hours of the morning, a theory began to form in my brain, a brilliant theory that I was perfectly capable of putting to the test. It encompassed both motive and opportunity. I could hardly wait for Friday evening to learn whether the arsonist would strike again.

He did not.

I had to wait another full week and compile another list of properties from The Times before this drama came to its conclusion.

Two weeks to the day since the Villiers Street fire, I took high tea instead of supper and arrived at Chandos Street Fire Station sharp at 7. Captain Shaw had not yet appeared and nor had the Duke of Sutherland, so after changing into my fireman’s uniform I had a game of billiards with Superintendent Flanagan and beat him soundly. Then I put my proposition to him.

“If there’s a fire this evening, I’d like to have command of one of the escapes — with your consent, of course.”

He pricked up his eyebrows. Generally, I’m content to take a subordinate role in fire-fighting. “Is there a reason for this, sir?”

Damned impertinence. I ignored the remark. “You have no shortage of escapes?”

“Oh, we have more than we ever use.”

“Mine can be surplus to requirements, then.” I added cuttingly, “I wouldn’t want to hamper the work of the London Fire Brigade through inexperience.”

He had the grace to mumble, “That’s unthinkable, Your Royal Highness.”

“Very good, then. And Flanagan...”

“Sir?”

“We won’t mention it to the others.”

“As you wish, sir.”

George Sutherland arrived soon after, and restored my joie de vivre in no time. He’s an old friend and a marvellous eccentric who happens to own more land than any other man in the kingdom. The Shah of Persia (another notable eccentric) once advised me that Sutherland was too grand a subject and I’d be well advised to have his head off when I come to the throne. I never miss an opportunity to remind George of this.

The alarm came at twenty minutes past eight. A house at the Leicester Square end of Coventry Street was well alight. Marvellous! It was on my list. The owner had died ten days ago, according to The Times.

I told nobody the significance of the address at this juncture. I was playing a cautious hand, by Jove. I made sure that I was last in the rush to the fire-fighting vehicles. I watched two engines and an escape being whipped out, bells jangling. Flanagan and George Sutherland were aboard the first to leave.

My team of two firemen waited deferentially for me to step up to the driver’s box, and I took my time, making certain that everyone else was out of the yard and would be clear of Chandos Street before we followed.

“All ready, Your Highness?” the driver asked.

I nodded. “Except that we shall not be going to the fire. Kindly drive to Eagle Street.”

“Eagle Street, sir.”

“Eagle Street, the other side of Holborn.”

“I know it, sir, but I didn’t know there was a fire there.”

“Wait and see,” I said cryptically.

We set off northwards up St Martin’s Lane. People are pretty considerate when they see a fire appliance coming and we rattled through to High Holborn at a good trot.

“Has the engine gone ahead, sir?” the driver enquired.

“An engine won’t be required,” I told him. Perhaps I should explain that an escape, such as the vehicle I had commandeered, is simply a cart with extending ladders. The fire engine is the vehicle that provides the steam for the pumps. It is unusual, to say the least, for an escape to attend a fire in the absence of an engine. You can imagine the look on the face of my driver. The look became a study in disbelief when we turned into Eagle Street and there was no engine and no fire. Not even a puff of smoke.

“Shall I turn about, sir?” he asked.

“No,” I told him. “Draw up outside number 39.”

“That’s Mr Flanagan’s address,” he informed me. “Our Superintendent.”

“I’m aware of that. Just do as I say.”

We trundled to a stop. There was no sign of a fire at 39, Eagle Street. Nobody was at the windows shrieking, or on the roof.

“Raise the main ladder,” I ordered. “And make as little sound as possible.”

The firemen exchanged mystified glances. Fortunately, they didn’t dare defy me. They cranked the ladder upwards.

“That will do,” I presently said. “Now can you swing it closer to that large window at the top?”

I made sure that the top of the ladder didn’t touch the window-sill, but it was pretty close. “Is it stable?” I asked. “In that case, I’m going up.”

Watched by an interested collection of bystanders, I mounted the ladder briskly, as firemen do. I have an excellent head for heights and this was only three storeys high, so I went up almost without pause. I drew level with the window and looked in. This being a September evening, there was still a good light and the curtains had not been drawn. What I saw may offend some readers; it would have offended me, had I not been prepared. Indeed, I might well have fallen off the ladder.

This was the Flanagans’ bedroom. There was a large double bed, occupied by the personable Dymphna Flanagan and a man who couldn’t possibly have been Flanagan, because Flanagan was fighting a fire in Coventry Street. Without wishing to be indelicate, I have to say that Dymphna and her visitor clearly weren’t discussing Irish politics. They were naked as cuckoos. I should state here that I’m no prude, and I’m no Peeping Tom either. The reason I remained staring into the room for two more minutes is that I needed to be certain of the man’s identity. I was waiting for him to turn his head. When he did, our eyes met. He saw me on my ladder and I saw Engineer Locke, Flanagan’s deputy.

I had fully anticipated this, of course. Friday — every other Friday — was Henry Locke’s day off. He had been setting unoccupied houses alight once a fortnight in order to make sure that Flanagan was usefully occupied for the evening. And I had deduced it.

One cannot defend an arsonist, yet I must admit to some sympathy for Henry Locke. It’s a frightful shock to be caught in flagrante by anyone, let alone the Heir Apparent in a fireman’s helmet poised atop a ladder.

I descended, stepped to the front door and knocked. Dymphna herself answered, having flung a garment over her head in the short time it took me to dismount from the ladder. She even managed a curtsey. Perhaps she hoped that I hadn’t recognized her lover, for when I asked to speak to Engineer Locke she clapped her hand to her mouth. To his credit, Locke then stepped forward. There was a distinct whiff of paraffin coming from his clothes — more confirmation, if needed, that he was the arsonist.

It was not needed, for he confessed to the crimes. Manfully he refused to implicate Dymphna in the fire-raising, though I’m privately certain she was an accessory.

In November, 1870, Henry Locke pleaded guilty and was sentenced to penal servitude for life. You may think it a harsh sentence — as I do — for a crime passionnel, but that’s the penalty for arson, and it was a dangerous way to court a lady.

Dymphna Flanagan parted from her husband soon after and took off to France with an onion-seller. Flanagan lost all his bounce and retired prematurely from the London Fire Brigade in 1873.

To end on a rising note, Captain Shaw kindly offered the unemployed servant Rudkin a job as a fireman third class, which he accepted. When I last enquired, he was performing ably. All things considered, I would recommend the fire service as a satisfying career for any man with a sense of public duty and a wife he can trust.