The Old Rogue of Limehouse

Book 9: Inspector Ben Ross

by Ann Granger

Genres: Cozy Mystery; Police Procedurals

Synopsis

Scotland Yard's Inspector Ben Ross and his wife Lizzie return in Ann Granger's gripping ninth Victorian mystery.



It is the summer of 1871 when Scotland Yard's Inspector Ben Ross pays a visit to Jacob Jacobus, the old rogue of Limehouse: infamous antiquarian, friend to villains, and informer to the police. Ben hopes to glean information about any burglaries that might take place now that the wealthiest echelons of society are back in London for the season.



Little does he realize that an audacious theft has already occurred—a priceless family heirloom, the Roxby emerald necklace, has been stolen from a dressing table in the Roxby residence, and the widowed Mrs. Roxby is demanding its immediate return.



Ben's day gets worse when he and his wife Lizzie are interrupted that evening by the news that Jacob Jacobus has been found dead in his room with his throat slit from ear to ear . . . Surely the two crimes cannot be connected? But with Ben's meticulous investigative skills and Lizzie's relentless curiosity, it is only a matter of time before the tragic truth is revealed . . .

Release date: July 6, 2023

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 320

Sample

‘NOW, IN France, as I’ve heard it,’ said Mr Jacobus, ‘they recognise what they call a crime of passion. Love, Mr Ross, being a powerful motivation. People goes quite mad on account of it. It’s a recognised defence there, is pleading a crime of passion.’

He gave a chuckle which rippled through his double chin. Propped on his neckcloth, it resembled nothing so much as a tiered blancmange, and his mirth was followed by a bout of wheezing. Finally, the chin stopped wobbling. He mopped his watering eyes with a spotted handkerchief.

‘Well, I’ve heard that, too,’ I told him, when he’d regained his composure. ‘But I can’t tell you if it’s true or not. All I’d say is, if you should find yourself in France, and be unwise enough to murder someone while there, I wouldn’t put my trust in pleading a crime of passion. I think you’d need a little more by way of defence.’

‘I dare say you are right,’ he said. ‘You being an officer of the law and knowing about such things. But I’m a sentimental man, Mr Ross, and I like to believe it.’

He heaved a deep sigh. He also liked to believe that an ancestor had arrived in England, in 1688, in the retinue of William of Orange. Or should I say that he liked other people to believe it? It might even have been true; but probably wasn’t. Did he actually believe it himself, in his heart of hearts? At any rate, like many a rogue, he had his story rehearsed; and he stuck to it.

He had observed, when I arrived, that he had not seen me for a while. He’d spoken reproachfully, as if I were a relative who had failed in his duty, not a police officer trying to do his. I had replied that I had been otherwise engaged; investigating a case of murder in the countryside. Jacobus expressed himself sorry to hear I’d risked such an adventure. He had a horror of sparsely habited areas and told me he never left London. Somehow this had led on to his observations on crimes of passion. Perhaps he’d hoped I’d entertain him with details of my rural exploits. If so, he was out of luck.

We sat in his stuffy parlour on the first floor of his narrow little house, which was squeezed between an ironmonger’s store and a tavern. I imagined these neighbours kept it upright, like a slice of bread in a toast rack. The house was of some antiquity. It had but one room on each floor, accessed from a rickety staircase with an alarming sideways slope to the treads. But it was three storeys high plus an attic. You might think that the exertion of climbing up and down the stairs would have led to its owner losing some of his considerable weight. However, this did not seem to be the case. I guessed that Jacobus, unless forced to emerge from his lair, used the staircase only to leave his bedroom of a morning and return to it at night; seldom descending to the ground floor and instead spending the greater part of the day crouched in this parlour, like the spider in the poem. The building’s framework was of wooden beams with crumbling brick between them, and the parlour window jutted out over the street. The window sections were latticed with tiny diamond-shaped panes of uneven glass. They had a greenish hue and were probably already in place when William and Mary ruled, with or without the help of the mythical Jacobus ancestor. Whenever I called upon Jacobus, I would shout up to him from the street and he would fling open this latticed window and throw his key down to me so that I could enter.

I’d never known the window to be opened for any other reason. We were near the river and docks here, in Limehouse, and any air let in would have been fouler than the bad air indoors. It would also have allowed the hubbub of the street below to rise and invade the room. The tightly closed windows at least served to keep this noisy world at bay.

Jacob Jacobus himself was a large man to be living in such cramped quarters. He was in his sixties, quite bald, with a complexion as pink and clear as that of a baby. Twinkling blue eyes peeped out from his chubby cheeks, and his general appearance was as haphazard as that of his house, or the details of his business. He wore a rusty black frock coat and chequered trousers. Beneath the coat was a brocade waistcoat bedecked with a gold chain that led to the half-hunter watch tucked into the little pocket, out of sight now, but I’d seen him consult it in the past. That, too, was gold.

He gave as his profession a dealer in antiquities, comprising paintings, old books and objets d’art. Occasionally he did sell some chipped piece of porcelain, a work of reference now a century out of date and riddled with bookworm, or a murky oil portrait. All this came from his ‘stock in trade’, as he proudly referred to it.

He had often invited me to view this cornucopia of junk, which was stored on the ground floor beneath our feet. ‘Any time you wish, Inspector!’ This meant he wanted me to see it because it was his ‘cover’. I had duly glanced around it on a couple of my visits, though both of us knew I was wasting my time. All of the dusty collection of works of art, mouldering volumes and knick-knacks that comprised it were, it goes without saying, lawfully acquired and accounted for, even if the items themselves were mainly fakes. I did not, for one moment, suppose Jacobus made a living from them. As far as Scotland Yard was concerned, he was almost certainly a fence, dealing in stolen items of much higher value. Unfortunately, the Yard had never been able to prove it. He always had paperwork of some kind to establish the legitimacy of anything we inquired about. If he didn’t, then he denied any knowledge of the items in question; and we couldn’t prove it. He was a clever fellow, was Jacob Jacobus.

But he was worth a visit because, from time to time, he passed on a little information regarding stolen items. Although never, of course, about any bit of business of his own. He called this ‘doing the police a little favour’, and saw it as a kind of insurance.

‘He’ll slip up one day, and we’ll have him!’ Superintendent Dunn liked to say. ‘In the meantime, he has his uses, old Jacobus.’

I doubted it, myself. With my wife, I had just returned from the New Forest. I’d been there on police business. She had been there on a holiday with the widow of her godfather, Mrs Julia Parry. She had once been Mrs Parry’s companion, and the lady liked Lizzie to address her as ‘Aunt Parry’. This use, or misuse, of a lapsed connection was like Mr Jacobus’s claim to a tenuous connection with William of Orange. It served the claimant’s purpose.

The reason I was here with Jacobus today was that Scotland Yard had been called upon to investigate a number of significant burglaries in wealthy households in the capital. We were in the midst of what is called ‘the Season’ by those with social aspirations. It has always appeared to me to be nothing so much as a marriage market for the wealthy. That means a round of parties, balls, entertainments and so forth, that requires the opening up of town houses, ostentatious displays of family plate and jewels and a soaring number of reports of house-breaking. Unusually, we had no case of murder on our hands at the moment. This situation couldn’t last, but it had led to my visit today.

‘Can’t have you twiddling your thumbs, Ross!’ Superintendent Dunn had declared. ‘Before long I dare say we’ll hear from Wapping that a body has been fished out of the Thames, or that someone has poisoned his landlady. But, in the meantime, go and see Jacobus. If there is anything in the wind, he might see fit to mention it. Get along well with him, don’t you?’

‘Another little glass?’ inquired Mr Jacobus solicitously now.

We had been sampling a bottle of his homemade apricot schnapps of which the old fellow was very proud. If I drank a second tot, I’d leave the house with the beginnings of a thumping headache. I declined, stood up, and collected my hat from a small antique gate-leg table. Jacobus claimed it had belonged to his mythical ancestor. As with most things owned by Jacobus, we couldn’t prove that it hadn’t; and didn’t believe for a moment that it had.

‘You’ll let me know if you should hear any whispers of the items of jewellery I mentioned being offered, as it were, on the unofficial market?’

Jacobus chuckled. ‘You’re a wit, Inspector Ross! And you’ve got a turn of phrase. Bless me, it’s a pleasure talking to you. Call again, my dear sir, I might have something for you. There again, I might not. You’ll mind how you go down the stairs, won’t you? The cleaning woman I employ has been washing them down, and they can be a tad slippery when she does that. She likes to splash the water about. It makes it look as though she’s done a thorough job. She’s never done one yet.’ He chuckled again.

During the latter part of my visit I’d been aware of sounds outside the parlour door, on the staircase. When I emerged into the stairwell, I saw just below me the cleaner in question, or at least I saw the top of her head and a faded mop of reddish hair untidily pinned up. She pulled aside the bucket to allow me to pass and looked up.

A grin spread across her face. ‘’Ullo, Mr Ross!’ she exclaimed. ‘Didn’t know it was you calling on the old feller. Remember me, do you?’ She wiped her hands on her grubby apron and settled back on her heels.

‘Good grief, it’s Daisy Smith!’ I replied.

I’d met her at the time when a serial killer called the River Wraith had sought out his victims among the many prostitutes working along the banks of the Thames. Daisy had then been one of that sisterhood, a lively, pretty redhead. She had lost her looks but not her London sparrow chirpiness. She sat down on the step and looked up at me. ‘Go on, then,’ she ordered. ‘Be a gent! Tell me I ain’t changed. I’d still catch the eye of one of the young swells about town.’

Sadly, that wasn’t true. The few years since we’d last met had not treated her well. Her skin had coarsened and become lined. She had lost one of her two upper front teeth and this caused the sibilants to whistle faintly as she spoke. Her skin was marked with the scars of infection.

‘I would’ve known you at once, Daisy,’ I replied courteously.

‘No, you never would!’ she retorted. ‘You’d have gone on past me and out the front door, if I hadn’t reminded you.’

I felt myself flush because it was true. ‘I’ve been calling on your employer, Daisy. My thoughts were elsewhere.’

‘What d’you want with the old villain, then? You won’t tell me, will you? I know that.’

I didn’t know quite what to say, so asked, ‘How long have you worked for Jacobus?’

‘Strictly speaking,’ said Daisy, ‘I work at the pub next door.’ She paused to pin up a stray lock of hair with her reddened hands, then continued, ‘I live there, too. Got a room in the attics. But the old man owns the pub, too, so you could say I do work for him. Same as Tom behind the bar, though he calls himself the landlord. I don’t just wash the stairs. I come in first thing and bring Mr Jacobus his coffee and muffins. Early evening, I bring him in his dinner from the pie shop down the road. Last thing of all, I come in at night, help him into bed and lock up the house when I leave.’

‘You take care of him, then? And you have a key?’ I remarked. I was wondering just what was included in ‘helping him into bed’.

‘It’s Tom who’s got the key, strictly speaking,’ Daisy corrected me. ‘I ask him for them, as needed. The old man don’t go out hardly ever. He can’t manage the stairs; and he’s got a mortal fear of open spaces.’

I recalled his dismay when I’d told him I’d just returned from the country. ‘I wasn’t aware he was a man of property,’ I said now. ‘Other than this house.’

‘And the ironmonger’s next door!’ said Daisy. ‘He owns that building too.’

Whatever business Jacobus was engaged in, he obviously did well out of it. The ‘stock in trade’ certainly would not have paid for it all. I would report all this to Dunn in due course.

In the meantime I fished in my pocket and found a couple of florins, which I gave her. ‘Good to see you again, Daisy.’

‘Ta!’ she replied, pocketing the coins. ‘Likewise! Mind how you go.’ She grinned at me. I wondered how she’d lost the front tooth. ‘See you again, I dare say!’ she said.

Indeed, we would meet again and much sooner than either of us then suspected.

I paused in the street, the throng eddying around me. It is not a quiet area. Its narrow, twisting thoroughfares are always crowded. Almost any nationality you care to name can be found, and a Tower of Babel of languages assaults the ear at any one time. Many of the speakers are sailors off the various ships using the docks, and where there are seamen, there are plenty of taverns, not to mention brothels, gambling and opium dens and eating houses serving food from around the world. Add to this mix the newly arrived immigrants from all parts of Europe and further afield, all seeking a better life, although I feared many didn’t find it here. But many were determined to thrive and set up all manner of businesses in cellars and rooms that doubled as the family living quarters.

Thanks to Daisy, I now knew that the tavern also belonged to Jacobus. It, too, appeared of considerable antiquity. A creaking sign on the façade announced it to be the Crossed Keys. I knew that name was linked to St Peter. This, together with its medieval timbering, made me wonder if it had been a church property before the monasteries had been abolished by Henry VIII. Perhaps it had been a hostelry for pilgrims. But on the other hand, this might only be its latest name. A clock was displayed on the frontage as required by law, since the advent of the railway and the standardisation of time throughout the land. It now uttered a discordant jangle and began to sound out the hour. I checked my own pocket watch against it. It was twelve noon. The place was doing brisk business. Labourers, costermongers, cabmen and flashily dressed fellows whose occupation was dubious passed in and out of its doors on their way to take a restorative pint or two. I also glanced at the ironmonger’s shop on the other side of Jacobus’s house. It looked from the outside like a respectable enough business.

I wondered if the old fellow owned other properties elsewhere; and in just how many pies he had his stubby fingers.

As I had been studying others, so they had noticed me and marked me down as a police officer. No matter I was not in uniform. They knew me for what I was; and someone I’d seen enter the tavern had informed the landlord. He came out and stood in the doorway staring at me. This, I supposed, was Tom, of whom Daisy had spoken. He was a tall, strongly built fellow with straw-coloured hair; and a nose so knocked out of any true shape that I could only conclude it had been broken several times. I guessed he might once have graced the prize ring. We assessed one another as opponents at the beginning of a boxing match might do. I held his stare and eventually he turned and went back inside.

I was also being observed during this time by a group of ragged grimy urchins. They had the glittering eyes and sharp stares of sparrowhawks. Many of them would already have tried their hands at petty crime; and as they grew older would graduate to serious law-breaking. Their portraits would one day grace the Yard’s rogues’ gallery.

The ragamuffins also recognised my calling; of course they had. To confirm this, one of them shouted, ‘Rozzer!’ They sent up a derisive cheer before they scurried away in all directions like a disturbed ants’ nest. The clock reminded me that I should already be back at the Yard and I set out at a brisk pace.

IT WAS a good thing I hadn’t stayed any longer with Jacobus. On my return to Scotland Yard I was intercepted by Sergeant Morris before I had managed to reach my desk. He loomed up and blocked my path, looking flustered and out of temper. This was not unusual, and on spotting me he appeared to cheer up. If he was pleased at my arrival, I was put on my guard. Now what had happened?

‘Good job you’ve come, sir!’ he growled in what he imagined to be a whisper. ‘The superintendent’s been asking for you for the last half an hour. He’s got a lady with him.’

‘Old or young?’

‘She’s of a certain age,’ said Morris in an attempt to sound genteel. It didn’t work. He abandoned it. ‘And she’s got a bit of money by the looks of her. You’re to go straight in, sir.’

‘Any idea what it’s all about, Sergeant?’

‘All I know,’ said Morris, ‘is that it concerns emeralds.’

Not yet another theft from a wealthy house! ‘Single stones or jewellery?’ I asked resignedly. Every officer we had was already engaged in trying to apprehend a jewel thief or find his takings. Silently I cursed ‘the Season’ and all the extra work it brought us.

‘Family heirloom!’ declared Morris. ‘Or so the lady reckons. They all say it’s family heirlooms that have gone missing. You’re nobody if you don’t have a family heirloom or two knocking around the place. Mrs Morris has a teapot that came into her family in the days of the second King George, she reckons. She sets great store by it, though it’s nothing I see as particular. But that’s heirlooms for you. You don’t have to like ’em; you just have own ’em. Or if you’re really rich, you just have to be robbed of ’em. If no one tries to rob you, that means you don’t have anything worth taking; and the rich don’t want that thought of them. On the other hand, they all want the stuff found and returned, double-quick. Don’t hang about, sir, I beg of you. The superintendent has worked himself up into a fair old state. I can’t tell you any more, on account as I don’t know any more about it than that! The lady,’ he concluded in a martyred voice, ‘did not see fit to confide in me.’

So, like Jacobus, he’d been left in the dark.

I entered Dunn’s office to find not one but two females present. There was clearly some difference in status between them. The room was dominated by a formidable lady in late middle-age (at my estimate). I am not a judge of ladies’ fashions. I rely on information from my wife for that. All I can say is that I’m glad the crinoline has lost its popularity. This visitor’s skirts, which earlier would have been supported by the frame, were now drawn back into a waterfall of material projecting to the rear below the waist. She wore a velvet jacket with braid trim, and a hat with a narrow brim and a quantity of tulle swathed round the crown like a turban. Beneath the hat, a pair of very sharp eyes assessed me. Then, as if we realised each of us was studying the other, she abruptly turned her gaze back to Superintendent Dunn.

I briefly assessed her companion. I used the word advisedly because ‘paid companion’ she clearly was. I judged her about fifty years of age, perhaps a year or two less, a plain woman, but with strong features and intelligent eyes. Her dress, too, was plain to the point of severity. She had clearly been brought along for convention’s sake. I suspected from her general demeanour that she had been in the complainant’s employ for some time. It was not an occupation I’d wish on any woman.

Constable Biddle was also there, seated discreetly in a corner with an open notebook on his knee. I am well acquainted with Biddle. Not only he is part of the force here at the Yard but he has also been walking out with our housemaid for a couple of years, despite the vigorous objections of his possessive mother.

‘Ah, Ross!’ exclaimed Dunn. ‘There you are at last.’

He was looking somewhat harassed himself. He turned to the visitor and said, ‘May I introduce Inspector Ross, ma’am? He is one of our most experienced officers.’

The hawkish gaze beneath the tulle turban was again turned on me. ‘Indeed,’ she said. ‘Does he know why I am here?’

I took it upon myself to answer. I don’t like being addressed indirectly. ‘Not in any detail, ma’am. I was told by the sergeant that it is a case of missing gems. But that is all.’

It wasn’t intended, but I had managed to annoy the caller.

‘This is not a simple theft!’ she said sharply. ‘We are speaking of an exceptional necklace of emeralds, with smaller diamonds, set in gold, and made in South America for my late husband’s great-grandmother. She was of a wealthy Brazilian family. He gave it to me at the time of our marriage. It has been stolen from my house. You will understand my anxiety as to its whereabouts and I wish to have it returned as soon as possible. I have explained it all to Superintendent Dunn; and that young man over there has written it all down.’

From the corner of my eye, I caught a brief show of emotion on the companion’s face. I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but it might have been resentment.

‘This lady,’ Dunn hastened to seize the reins of the conversation, ‘is Mrs Charlotte Roxby.’

‘I am honoured to make your acquaintance, Mrs Roxby.’ Her expression thawed and she nodded at me quite graciously. Alas, I immediately squandered any measure of her approval by asking, as blandly as I could, ‘And the other lady?’

‘My companion, Miss Chalk!’ snapped Mrs Roxby.

Miss Chalk glanced up again, met my gaze, then dropped her eyes to her folded hands on her lap. Now, I thought, that is someone it would pay to talk to. She probably knows all there is to know about the family. I already didn’t like Mrs Roxby. Nor would I accept verbatim anything she said. Yes, I would need to talk privately with the companion. But I had one question that needed to be asked immediately.

‘May I inquire, ma’am, whether the necklace is normally kept in a bank vault; or is it usually to be found at the house?’

‘It is kept in an excellent safe at my house!’ she shot back. ‘If it were kept in a bank vault, it would have to be fetched from there each time it was required, and returned the next day. I live in Hampstead. The road across the Heath can be lonely. It would be an invitation to highway robbery. It is – was – better kept in my own safe.’

The irony of this last statement was lost on no one in the room. The lady reddened. Miss Chalk looked briefly as if she was enjoying her employer’s momentary loss of composure.

‘I will acquaint Inspector Ross with the known details, ma’am,’ said Dunn frostily, stepping in.

‘I expect you to call on me at my home in Hampstead, Inspector, tomorrow at half past two o’clock,’ said Mrs Roxby to me. ‘You will be able to bring me up to date on your progress in the matter. Th. . .