The Hellfire Conspiracy

22

The next morning we were out early, for Barker wanted to investigate the addresses Beatrice Potter had tracked down for us at the Charity Organization Society. She was more than the charming companion of the evening before.

“The first,” Barker said, “was a girl named Ruth Scoggins, adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Dodsworth of Twenty-two Saint Stephen’s Road. If we hurry, we might catch him.”

For once, luck was with us. Our knock upon the door of number 22 brought a large, uncouth man to the door, a serviette tucked into his shirt and his mouth still full.

“Wotcher want?” he demanded, still chewing his breakfast.

“To speak with you and your wife, Mr. Dodsworth, upon a very serious matter, the murder of your adopted daughter.”

The man swallowed, perhaps a trifle too quickly. He coughed several times. “Police?” he finally choked out.

“My name is Cyrus Barker. We are private enquiry agents, hired by another parent who lost a child.”

“Stay ’ere,” he said. “I’ll arsk the missus. She weren’t expecting company.”

We waited on the doorstep a good five minutes before the door opened and the woman of the house ushered us in. She looked like him, perhaps because married couples, through living together, take on the same shape and mannerisms. Mrs. Dodsworth was round and buxom and unkempt, but I suspected she had a good heart. She drew us into the kitchen that smelled of pie crust and almost belligerently tried to feed us. It took several protests and the acceptance of a cup of tea each before she relented and we were able to get to the matter at hand.

“It is no longer a secret that there is a man in the area that has been taking young girls and killing them,” my employer said. “I’m afraid your daughter was one of them. Scotland Yard has withheld the names of some of them from us, and yours was the first we uncovered. Would you be able to speak about it? It’s possible that even the most wee bit of information might offer a clue that will help us.”

Dodsworth looked at his wife and after she nodded, he did the same.

“It were a bad experience, sirs, I can tell you,” the man said. “She was a tough nut, was our Ruthie, and it came as no surprise she came to a bad end. Emmy and me, sir, we was never blessed with little ones, and one day she says, ‘Let’s go to the Poplar Orphanage and see about adopting a girl.’ She gets lonely when I’m at work, you see, and a girl would liven up the place. We went there, expecting to get a child of five or six, but Emmy clapped eye upon ten-year-old Ruthie and that was it. She wouldn’t be happy until Ruthie was home in our kitchen. She had the face of an angel, but the devil of a time during her early days. Blackguard of a father beat and half starved her. She walked to London all the way from Bristol, I ’ear, after he died o’ drink. Came to the orphanage by way of the Charity Organization Society.”

He sipped noisily from his cup. His wife, standing by the sink, had kneaded her apron in a bunch and was sniffing.

“It weren’t hard to adopt her. Most don’t want the older children ’cept as farm workers. Within a few days we had her in this very kitchen and Emmy promising to make her all manner of dresses. But the child were distant like and distrustful, not that I blame her. She weren’t in the house a fortnight ’fore she slipped anchor and took the best Sunday china with her.”

“She didn’t mean to do it,” Mrs. Dodsworth explained. “She weren’t happy and needed money to live on.”

“Now, don’t take on, Emmy, in front o’ the nice gentlemen.”

“Did you ever see her again?” my employer asked.

“I should say I did, and a sorry sight it was. I was coming home from the ’bacconist with a new twist one day, when I all but run into her in Cambridge Road, all dressed up like a dollymop with a swell on her arm. I laid into her, I can tell you, for breaking my Em’s heart. Almost got into it with her fancy man, as well, I were that angry.

“Didn’t see her after that, not alive, anyway. Three months later the River Police called me in to identify the body. A sorrier sight I’ve never seen and ne’er shall again. Her face, well, I’d rather not describe it, with Emmy in the room.”

Mrs. Dodsworth was crying now but doing it soundlessly. This poor couple, I thought. They didn’t deserve such grief.

“So, that’s it, then. We decided we ain’t gonner adopt no more childrens. We let ourselves open and that were the consequence. We was happy before, weren’t we, Em? And we’ll be happy again, I reckon. Now, if you gentlemen don’t mind, I’ve got to get to work.”

“This man Ruth was with,” I spoke up. “Was he blond, with a pointed chin?”

“No, young man,” Mr. Dodsworth replied. “Dark fella, with a beard, not much above your own age.”

“Thank you, sir, for being so forthcoming. We regret any distress we may have caused. Come, Thomas.”

The second couple we visited was the Goldsteins. Their story began differently, but ended the same. Zinnah Goldstein was their own daughter, and they had high hopes for her future, until she was fourteen and took up with a young Irishman, despite their objections. She would not listen to her parents, and when he finally threw her over, she no longer cared for her reputation or her religion. The rabbi of Bevis Marks tried to forge a reconciliation, but before that could happen, she disappeared. It was the opinion of the Goldsteins that Zinnah threw herself off London Bridge. Sad as it was, it was more respectable a death than being murdered. Barker did not attempt to change their mind, even after learning the Goldsteins had come to the area through the C.O.S.

Alice Childers of Stepney had a penchant for dipping pockets. Her father, a former sailor, tossed her out to fend for herself. She’d been found in the river missing one ear. She’d once come to the C.O.S. to seek help after her father beat her.

Fanny Rice was thrown out by her parents, when she was found to be with child at aged twelve. The charity helped her through the baby’s birth, brief life, and death. Fanny had become a Whitechapel prostitute but eventually went missing. Her parents learned about her from the local constable, who read it on her police record.

Finally, Lizzy Gilbert, the last name on the list, was a good girl, her parents maintained, and would not hear otherwise. We were obliged to ask a neighbor about her. The girl, as it turned out, was given freedom to act as she pleased, and she did. She also had a police record at the tender age of thirteen.

Afterward, we were seated at a table in a public house called the Bread and Treacle, overlooking the Thames. Barker was finishing a plate of fried potatoes and egg. As with most meals, he pushed everything together. I prefer space between my food.

“Impressions?” Barker asked, patting his pockets for his tobacco pouch.

“Mine?” I foundered for a moment. “Well, sir, either accidentally or intentionally, they all are linked to the C.O.S.”

“We should continue to consider the connection between it and Mr. Miacca,” the Guv replied.

“He seems to hover over it like a malevolent spirit.”

“Apt, if a trifle flowery,” Barker said around the mouthpiece of his pipe. “Can you picture him putting gifts on the windowsills of good children in the area?”

“Yes, and punishing those like Ruth Scoggins.”

“It is not true, however, that all of Miacca’s victims were kept women. Gwendolyn DeVere certainly was not. I would think that while they are valuable mistresses they are safe, but once discarded by their patrons, they become candidates for Miacca’s attention.”

I looked at Barker, knowing some connection had just occurred in his brain.

“Blast!” he bellowed, shocking everyone in the room. He pulled a letter out of his pocket and opened it so quickly it ripped. It was Miacca’s last poem.

“What is it?”

“He’s toying with us.”

“Sir!” the manager said, coming to our table. “I must ask you to modulate your voice or leave.”

“Pay the man, lad,” my employer said, rising. “We’ve stayed here too long as it is.”

I paid him and followed the Guv outside. “What is it?” I asked. “Show me.”

“Look here,” he said. “‘I’m going on a killing spree.’ Do you see how the ‘a’ is out of place here. It’s too close to the word ‘on.’ Miacca is speaking of Ona Bellovich.”