Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 120, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 733 & 734, September/October 2002

A Case for Judge and Jury by Amy Myers

Amy Myers currently lives in Kent, where she was born, but she spent a number of years in Paris, and it was there she got the idea for her best-known character, Victorian chef detective Auguste Didier. This time a different series character, Tom Wasp, Victorian chimney sweep, takes the stage. Wasp has so far appeared only in short stories; in the works, though, is a full-length Wasp novel. A collection of Myers short stories, Murder, ’Orrible Murder, is also due soon.

“Tom Wasp,” roared Billy Buckler, “that’s a good clean sweep, that is.” Ned — he’s my apprentice — had just taken the tuggy cloth away, and we looked up the flue approvingly. My old Smart’s sweeping machine still does a grand job. “What say you to a mutton chop and a pint of our best ale?”

I’d have been happier to say yes to our usual threepence, but Billy’s tavern isn’t a place where one should begin a discussion of that sort. You may know of the Old Ivy, in Ivy Lane off London’s Strand. It leads to the Ivy steps on the river Thames, where the halfpenny steamboats moor. It is a dark narrow place, much dignified by the name “lane,” and the tavern is as full of villains as Wapping’s Paddy Goose. But business is business, and Ned and I treat Billy’s chimney with as much respect as were the queen to invite us to sweep the flues of Buckingham Palace.

Billy beamed, and all fifteen stone of him wobbled in his pleasure at our acceptance. “There’s rare entertainment tonight, lads: a Judge and Jury show.”

I noticed that despite the smile, his face was sweating and wondered what troubled him. I knew what troubled me. Today’s Judge and Jury clubs in the 1860s aren’t what they were twenty years ago, or even five years ago when the famous so-called “Baron” Nicholson brought his entertainment to the Coal Hole tavern in Fountain Court, not a stone’s throw away from here. As you know, these “clubs” exist for the reenactment of the latest scandalous cases, usually of murder, where the whole audience is the jury and every detail an excuse for a bawdy joke. No ladies used to be admitted, of course, though as the standard declined and more custom was needed, ladies were allowed in afterwards to view the Poses Plastiques — only they aren’t usually ladies, and the spectacle of classical poses is not usually educational.

“What’s the case?” I asked Billy cautiously. You might wonder why I didn’t object on Ned’s behalf, he being of tender years. Ned don’t climb flues, but he climbs the dirty flue of life each day. Fortunately he leaves the filth around him and always comes out into the light clean.

Billy Buckler was sweating even harder now. “Kitty Robinson,” he said, “my serving girl. Pulled out of the river last week. Suicide, so they say. But who’s to blame for that, eh?”

“Now that, Billy, I’m sore distressed to learn.” I meant it. Kitty had seemed a pretty, modest sort of girl, or had been when she arrived up from foreign parts. Dorset, she’d said. She’d always give me a smile and Ned a bit of pie, so we were both her loyal servants.

“She’s on my conscience,” Billy said heavily.

“Why, Billy?” It was news to me that Billy had one. His face would still be beaming at you if he rammed a knife in your gullet.

“You’ll find out this evening, Tom Wasp.”

We sat, Ned and I, on a small bench separated from most of the audience. We have that smell that is natural to us, but which can give offence to others, even though I bathe once a month. Ned doesn’t, but he has his reasons, and he’s out in the Good Lord’s rain often enough to make him sweet even though his face is grimed with soot.

Mind you, the audience in the Ivy’s cellar entertainment room was smelly enough for our stench not to be noticed. The steaming bodies of gentlemen intent on a good night out, each clutching his beer, in a stuffy, smoky room, indicated a noisy evening ahead. All manner of men were there, working men, city clerks, middle-aged tradesmen who couldn’t face their homes, and the occasional masher who fancied an evening living dangerously.

“Gentlemen,” roared Billy promptly at eight o’clock, resplendent in dishcloth wig and old red petticoat cloak. “Pray silence.” So he was playing the judge. This seemed odd to me, since wit was not one of his attributes. He occasionally obliged his clientele with a comic song, and this — though I had not heard of such an ingredient in a Judge and Jury show before — was one of those occasions. Instead of an opening speech, his deep voice rang out with:

So this must be the charge against a so far nameless villain. The story of this old song was that of Kitty Robinson, Billy then told us jurymen. Unusual though it was to have a singing judge and musical charge, the audience promptly bawled out the rest of the song and the chorus, adding a lot of shouted bawdy jokes along the way.

“I blame myself,” cried this most unusual judge, tears pouring down his cheeks. “It was me persuaded my poor Kitty to oblige me by taking part in the Poses Plastiques, thus inflaming the lust and desire that led to her death.”

A roar of discussion on lust and desire followed, with many comments on poor Kitty’s anatomy. They were already forgetting she was dead, and the respect due to it, though it is true that many might not have known her, and thus be partly excused.

“But,” yelled Billy, “there were others that could not see her beauty without wanting it. Was it Kitty’s fault for letting herself go to the bad, or was it that of our loyal patron, Lord Pleasaunce, who seduced her to his wicked way?”

A ritual groan of disgust was suddenly broken off as the jury realised that Billy’s pudgy finger was pointing directly at one of their number.

His young lordship was well known, chiefly for the amount he could drink and spend in one evening, and I knew he was a regular here. Word must have got around about the subject of the evening’s case if his lordship had come here himself on this particular evening.

“You’re the jury, you hear the evidence, and you decide who was guilty,” Billy ended in a burst of rhetoric.

From our bench at the rear, I could see the back of Lord Pleasaunce’s top hat; it was leaning over as though he were keeling onto his neighbour’s shoulder, but it suddenly came upright again, probably as its owner realised what was happening.

The actors in the drama were trooping onto the stage, as elegantly dressed as Billy himself. A weasly faced, elegantly cravat-ted gent was first to raise his hat. “I’m Lord Pleasaunce,” he announced.

“Dammit, you cur, you’re not,” slurred his real lordship amiably, already in his cups.

I’d seen this weasel before, and knew him to be Lord Pleasaunce’s valet. It was one Bertram Wallace, in my view a man whose chimney could never be clean, and who was known to encourage his lordship in his foolish ways.

Then a young coster leapt onto the stage beside him. “I’m honest Jack Evans,” he told us, “poor Kitty’s grieving sweetheart, who would have wed her were it not for this swine.”

I recognised him, too, not as a patron of the Ivy, but as owner of the ginger-beer fountain carried by pony and cart along the Strand each day. Its brass pump handles and mahogany casing make it a handsome sight, though it is rare that I can find a halfpenny to indulge in a glass. Jack is a handsome fellow and good-natured, so I was grieved for him. He was sweating, too, with the honour of taking the limelight by playing himself.

“And I’m poor Kitty’s suffering mother, Hannah,” shouted a handsome lady of middle years and uncommon girth.

She was greeted by outrage from the audience. “Out! No women allowed!” By time-honoured tradition, male actors played the roles of the ladies in the case in this reenactment of the dreadful deed and what had led to it.

“Any of you want to take me on?” Hannah — also obviously playing herself — stood akimbo, facing them with grim face. To the man, the audience was quelled to silence.

“Objection overruled,” yelled Billy, remembering his job.

“And here’s my darling daughter Kitty back from the grave for you to judge her shame,” Hannah announced, now victory was hers.

“Kitty” was clad in bonnet and pink gown of great size, which was necessary since it embraced a fully-clothed masculine body beneath it. I particularly admired the large black boots visible even from our far corner.

“I am Kitty,” claimed a falsetto voice, “here to show you how I have been wronged.”

“How do you like to be wronged again, dearie,” yelled the audience promptly. Kitty dropped them a curtsy. Her face, too, was familiar to me, but I could not place it.

We then watched the drama. A sweet six-foot-tall Kitty with posy in hand paid a tearful farewell to her mama and trotted away around the stage. She then reappeared pulling imaginary glasses of beer from a barrel; Honest Jack proceeded to woo her, and put his manly arm around her manly form.

“How about a kiss?” asks one of the audience — only the word wasn’t kiss.

“Use your imagination,” snarls Jack.

“Did you poke her?” asked Billy vengefully.

“I did not,” whips back Honest Jack, “and there’s a floorer waiting for the next man that says I did.”

“But I did,” says “Lord Pleasaunce.” Bert Wallace was an actor born, for he seized Kitty in his arms, making various suggestive movements of his hands and body. I wondered how the real Lord Pleasaunce was taking this admission of guilt, but there was no public reprisal from under that smart top hat.

Kitty then starts patting her tummy. “Oh dear,” she tells us, “I’ve been put up the spout.”

Hannah comes into her own then. “You tell that lord he’s to wed you, luvvie.”

“Yes, Mama, I’ll tell him tomorrow night. He’s taking me to the bal masqué at eleven o’clock.”

Now, the bals masqués are little higher than Judge and Jury clubs on the ladder of morality, and they thrive in the nightlife of London. If you haven’t been to one, you’ve surely seen them. You pay your entrance fee and your fourpence for a mask, if you have not the wit to take one with you, or come clad in fancy dress, all for the pleasure of meeting the riffraff of London, such as gentlemen usually seek on the Haymarket. But it is lively, and the music a merry excuse for what the streets cannot permit to be seen.

Bert Wallace then crams on his head a big musketeer’s hat with a protruding mask to cover his face, and Kitty sticks a flower in her bosom.

“Oh, how handsome you look, your lordship,” Kitty cries as they do a little dance together, looking somewhat odd since Bert is only five foot three and this Kitty six foot or more. Then she pats her tummy and pleads with his lordship. “You must marry me,” she informs him.

“Alas, I cannot,” says Bert. “I am—” pause for effect — “to wed another.”

He walks away, leaving poor Kitty in tears. She casts a hand to her brow, sways a little, then dashes to the back of the stage where a curtain has a notice pinned to it reading “The River Thames.” She pushes it aside, disappears from sight, and screams out a terrible cry for vengeance.

“Gad, Wallace,” yelled Lord Pleasaunce from the audience, distinctly slurred now. “Not bad at all. Nice young filly, that Kitty.”

“Time for the trial.” Billy thumps his “bench” with one great fist. “Tom Wasp, I need you up here.”

What was this? It was unwelcome, whatever it was, but no one says no to Billy, especially a chimney sweep of five foot with bowed legs. “You’re prosecuting Lord Pleasaunce,” says Billy. “Jem Wiggs has let me down. Bert Wallace here will defend his master, and you can prosecute him.”

This was promotion in a big way, but an unwelcome one. The audience seemed as disgusted as I was, since a chimney sweep is poor value for money, and they jeered me to inform me of their opinion. Sweeps are not known for their comic wit, nor even for knowledge of the laws of our country. What concerned me more was that Lord Pleasaunce would no doubt take against my efforts to prosecute him, even if in jest. But was it jest? Billy’s Judge and Jury case seemed to be a personal crusade against his lordship, and I was to be its instrument. I was not at all eager to vilify the gentleman whom I was to accuse of seducing poor Kitty Robinson.

A strange thing then happened. The weight of a heavy boot suddenly landed on my foot. My own boot being of far inferior quality, I felt it keenly and turned indignantly to find myself face to chest with “Kitty.” Only then did I recognise him. It was young Constable Peters, whom I had met when investigating the drowning of another poor lady.

“Do it for Kitty’s sake,” he trilled falsetto at me as I stood amazed at this latest shock. His presence could be no accident, but since when did the Metropolitan Police investigate charges of seduction?

I took his point, however. So there I was, a player in this strangest of plays.

In my trade, I am accustomed to flues going off at unexpected angles from the main chimney, and am used to working out how each one may be tackled. This should be no different. I guessed the reason for the constable’s presence, and it wasn’t the moral issue of Billy’s song — it’s the rich that gets the pleasure, the poor that gets the blame. Billy’s wink at me implied he was in the know, and I realised that I had been purposely summoned to clean more chimneys than that keeping our mutton chops warm.

I was given a dishcloth of my own to wear, which, with my blackened face beneath, suited me well, Ned told me later. Bert, now in his new role of counsel to Lord Pleasaunce, donned a dishcloth, too, and Kitty, Hannah, and Jack retired to the side of the stage in case we had need of them.

I had no idea where to begin, so I decided to interrogate the corpse.

“I call Kitty, my lord.”

There was loud discussion as to whether a corpse could give evidence about its own death, especially from Pleasaunce himself, who stood up in the audience — supported by his neighbours — to challenge me. Thinking quickly, I pointed out that Kitty had already given evidence in her own defence during the drama.

Billy crowed his approval. “Well done, Tom Wasp.”

Flushed with success, I proceeded. “Who was the father of your baby?” I asked the constable.

“He was.” Kitty pointed at his lordship.

“Objection.” Bert Wallace was on his feet. “Not proved. I say it was Honest Jack here.”

“No, I never,” Jack shouted, rushing over to give him a clip on the ear. “I could never get close enough. I work all day with the ginger-beer fountain, and by the time I got back at night Kitty was working here. What’s more, she slept in, and Billy wouldn’t let me past the door to the living quarters.”

“Is that true, Billy?” I wasn’t sure if judges could give evidence.

“True enough,” Billy said mournfully. “How was I to know his lordship took her to those dens of iniquity?”

I looked at Hannah in case she wanted to add anything, but she was blowing her nose on her scarf so I went on to my next point, of which I was most proud, having acquired this knowledge only recently from a Thames boatman I got talking to.

“Was there froth in your air passages when you were cut open on the slab, Kitty?”

“From my beer?” asks Billy, taking this as an insult to both of them. “She never touched a drop.”

“It weren’t from my ginger beer,” Jack yelled equally angrily. “I was out of it the day she died.”

“Not that kind of froth,” I says soberly, seeing from Kitty’s nod that I was on the right track. “The froth means she was alive when she went in the water, like a suicide would be.”

“There was no froth,” Kitty says in his falsetto, highly pleased with me. “I was dead already.”

“So it is true to say,” I paused for my big moment, “you were murdered.”

“I was, I was,” Kitty replied. “But I don’t know who did it. I was grabbed from behind.”

Well, there was uproar then, all right. Ned was standing on a bench cheering my endeavours, as were most of the audience, who saw the show taking a rare upturn. Even the judge was cheering. Only Lord Pleasaunce wasn’t.

“What’s all this about?” The drink was confusing him, but not so much that he didn’t see the risk here to himself.

“You’re being accused of murder, your lordship,” said his counsel brightly.

“Objection,” yelled Billy the judge. “No one’s accused him. The murderer could have been anyone. Honest Jack, for example.”

Jack suddenly got very pale and pointed at Hannah. “Could as well have been her. She was here all evening.”

“Whatdyer mean?” Her face went as black as mine. “Why would I want to murder my own lovely daughter?”

“You came up from Dorset when she knew she was expecting,” Jack cried. “She told me she was sending you money. I thought it was what she earned, being simple, but it was what that lord there gave her. You wanted to make sure she got rid of the baby so the money could go on.”

“Just like the song,” I put in. “Drinking champagne what she sends ’em / But they never can forgive.”

“We were together all evening, Jack. Remember?” Hannah snarled. “I don’t like you, but I can’t see you hang.”

This word had an interesting effect on these actors as they realised this could get very nasty for them — and they probably didn’t even have the privilege of knowing Constable Peters was present.

Jack calmed down very suddenly. “That’s what I mean. You had no cause to murder her, Hannah, nor had I, and we was together anyway.”

“Where?” I asked quickly. “Kitty went with his lordship to the bal masqué.”

“In Jack’s lodgings,” Hannah said. “You’re a mean bloke, Billy. You wouldn’t let me stay with Kitty, so I stayed with Jack.”

By this time the full extent of his danger had worked its way through to Lord Pleasaunce’s brain.

“I,” he shouted, “shall defend myself. Out of my way, Wallace!” He staggered up onto the stage, gave his defence lawyer a hefty push, seized his dishcloth, and swayed to and fro, fixing the audience with an inimical glare. Then he remembered it was his jury so he changed it to a weak grin.

“I’ll tell you what happened that night,” he says, “but first, Kitty—” he jabbed the constable in the bosom of his pink gown — “you weren’t an innocent virgin. Couldn’t have been. You were in the Poses Plastiques. Would any virtuous girl appear there?”

Billy groaned. “I persuaded her, but she was virtuous as God is my witness.”

“Ah,” says his lordship, displaying the kind of intelligence that comes from aristocratic schooling, “but I couldn’t know that, could I? I was entitled to think she was after fun. Does anyone here think otherwise?”

The audience cried with one accord: “No.”

“I do,” yells the judge, but I had to ignore this illegal intervention, even though it was helpful to my role as prosecutor.

“What happened was this.” Lord Pleasaunce broke off as a hiccup intervened, then tried again. “Kitty was all too willing to oblige me, and we had many sweet trysts.”

“You forced her,” interrupted Jack vengefully.

“What, every time?” asks his lordship, and the audience showed its mirth.

“So,” his lordship continues, encouraged, “we went to the bal masqué and she told me she was expecting and would I marry her. I could not, I told her. Unfortunately.”

“Did you tell her you were engaged to a nice young lady?” Jack sneered. “You double-crossing cur.”

Cheers from the audience and a few bawdy comments.

His lordship ignored him. “I gave her money, and I left her. What more could I do? The last I saw of her, she was approaching someone else on the dance floor. No shy violet, alas.”

“Threatening to tell your young lady, was she?” Jack choked. “Is that why you killed her? You took her down to the Thames for a quiet talk, garrotted her, and threw her in.”

The way this was going, my services were hardly needed.

His lordship suddenly became vicious. “It was you did that. You must have followed us. Now I come to think of it, it must have been you she was going to talk to on the dance floor. You had a Mr. Punch mask on.”

“Tell them about his nasty temper, my lord,” shouted Bert from the audience.

His lordship did. “Thank you, Wallace. This is no honest Jack, gentlemen. This is a vengeful, jealous man.”

“I loved her,” Jack cried.

“I know,” says his lordship triumphantly, “so there was no need for me to murder her because she said she could always marry you. She laughed and said you were the kind of fool who believed her when she told you she wanted to stay a virgin until after the bells had rung.”

Quick as a flash I entered the ring again. “Wouldn’t Jack have been a mite surprised when a baby turned up much too early?” This was too much for the aristocratic intelligence, and I had to explain. “She would have wanted to sleep with Jack if you, your lordship, turned her away, so as to have an alternative father for the baby in good time. Especially if Jack does have a nasty temper. Your lordship, you must be lying about what Kitty said, or when she said it.”

I was doing very well, I told myself proudly. Jack could prove he was elsewhere when poor Kitty was being murdered, and Lord Pleasaunce had incriminated himself by lying.

I opened my mouth for my closing speech and then shut it again, as his lordship came in first.

“I demand,” he shouted, “to cross-examine Mrs. Hannah Robinson, Kitty’s mother.”

Up she jumped, and I couldn’t think of any objection to this, so had to let it be.

“Tell me, Mrs. Robinson,” milord said, “were you at the pub that evening watching the Poses Plastiques?”

“I was. Not taking part, of course,” she said modestly, in order that every man present might have a vision of Hannah’s sturdy body in classical pose and non-dress.

“When did you leave?”

“At the end, your lordship.” Getting muddled, she curtsied. “About eleven o’clock, when you and Kitty left.”

“You then went home with Jack Evans?”

“I did, and stayed there.”

“Suppose he crept out again afterwards?”

“There’s only one door to the outside, your lordship, your worship—” this time she threw a pleading look at the judge — “and I was sleeping by it.” She looked as innocent as a three-card trickster. “We had a glass of ginger beer, consoled each other for Kitty going off with his lordship, being quite sure — he being the gentleman he is — that he would marry her, and then we went to bed. Separately,” she added virtuously.

Everything was now clear to me. My new profession was suiting me well. But what was I to do? Was I here for justice or to accuse Lord Pleasaunce? I was in a pretty pickle if the latter took priority, so I decided justice should have my marker.

“You’re lying, Mrs. Robinson,” I declared grandly, just as though I were a real barrister-at-law and not a chimney sweep. “There was no ginger beer that day. Mr. Evans told us that earlier.”

Hannah Robinson promptly collapsed in tears, staggering around to clutch the red cloak of the judge. “Oh, forgive me, Your Honour. As God is my witness, he made me do it. He made me tell a lie.”

The jury was entranced, eagerly waiting to find out whether the “he” was his lordship, Jack Evans, or God himself. The betting against Lord Pleasaunce trebled.

Then all became clear. “Jack went after them,” Hannah sobbed. “He came back late drunk and talking wildly, face as black as thunder. ‘Don’t you say nothing,’ he said.”

“I didn’t,” yelled Jack.

The jury didn’t believe him and the betting swung the other way.

“Silence,” said Kitty’s corpse, taking a stand at last. The corpse whipped off his pink dress to reveal a pigman’s uniform.

Uproar again. Half the audience promptly scrambled for the door and the other half was threatening to kill the judge for exposing them to the scum of the Metropolitan Police Force.

“Free beer,” yelled Billy, and suddenly all was quiet.

“This isn’t about anything save Kitty Robinson,” Constable Peters informed them. “I’ll have the rest of you villains fair and square some other time, but tonight is Kitty’s.”

This speech gave Jack time to consider his own defence. “All right,” he says, “I was at home, but the old hag wasn’t. I knew where she was all right. Tucked up in Bert Wallace’s bed, drinking gin, courtesy of his lordship’s money. He paid her off to keep quiet about Kitty.”

The audience took a time to absorb this new twist and so did I, but when it did the hiss and howl were instantaneous.

“He dunnit!” “He” was definitely his lordship, judging by the direction the rotten tomatoes were flying in.

Jack was flushed with success, and Billy was cheering him on, obviously having already decided the verdict.

“That’s it,” Jack repeated in case anyone missed the point. “In Bert’s bed and in his lordship’s pay.” Jack’s honest face was a picture of indignation.

“I never saw her again after I left the bal masqué alone!” bleated Lord Pleasaunce weakly. “He took her down to the Thames himself, garrotted her, and pushed her in, all through jealousy.”

This set me thinking. It was like Friday night in the Paddy Goose house now. Jack and Hannah were engaged in fisticuffs, his lordship was threatening to sue the judge, and Bert Wallace was beating a hasty retreat. Constable Peters was standing to one side, however, so I had a quick word with him. Fortunately he agreed with me, and I was prouder than ever of my skills, regretting my station in life did not permit my attendance at legal school. Still, I wouldn’t have Ned’s companionship then, nor the freedom of my roving life.

Although Billy seemed to have decided the case was over, the jury was still delivering its verdict with vegetable missiles aimed at his lordship. So Constable Peters had to blow his whistle to make the audience return to its seats.

“I’m ready to make my closing speech,” I announced.

“Who against?” Billy asked. “His lordship, I hope.”

“For Kitty,” I replied grandly.

“Thank you, Mr. Wasp,” Billy replied no less formally.

Constable Peters sat down, still clutching Kitty’s flower so that we wouldn’t forget what this case was all about.

“I call his lordship,” I said, and the barrage of rotten vegetables temporarily ceased as he turned to me.

“Now, sir, when you took Kitty to the bal masqué you were wearing the hat and mask that Bert Wallace sported tonight. Is that so?”

“Yes,” admitted his lordship cautiously.

“And was Miss Kitty wearing a mask?”

“She was not. I saw no reason to pay fourpence for her mask. She was with me, and did not need one. I don’t believe in wasting money.”

“Thank you, my lord,” I replied to this virtuous declaration, which would come as a surprise to most of the gambling dens and pubs of London.

“Is that all? Don’t you want the handcuffs, Tom?” Billy asked, deeply disappointed.

“Yes, we do.”

“Which of them dunnit then?”

“Oh.” My second big moment had come. “The one that spoke of garrotting when no such word had been mentioned. Honest Jack.”

Well, the corpse had her vengeance all right. It’s not often a corpse can have the satisfaction of pinning the handcuffs on its murderer, but Kitty did that night. As I pointed out, garrotting needs a cord, and in his jealous rage, Jack would have used the first thing to hand, the cords of his mask. Kitty didn’t have a mask, and his lordship’s, being attached to the hat, didn’t need cords.

Billy almost cried with relief to see Kitty avenged. As he put it, “She may not have been so good as I thought, but which of us is, eh, Tom? It’s the rich that gets the pleasure and the poor that gets the blame. Just as I said, for Honest Jack was to blame. And I was right.”

“None of them were nice people, Ned,” I said as we walked home. “Not his lordship, nor his valet, not Kitty’s mother, nor her murdering sweetheart. Not even Kitty herself. What do you think of the morals of that, Ned?”

He was silent for a moment. Then, as usual, he put me in my place by cutting through straight to the heart of it.

“She gave me a pie, Gov.”