Portrait of Peril Read online

  PORTRAIT OF PERIL

  A VICTORIAN MYSTERY

  Laura Joh Rowland

  To my readers, who have supported and sustained my writing for all these years. Thank you.

  London, October 1890

  CHAPTER 1

  “If I fall, will you hold me up?” I whisper to Lord Hugh Staunton.

  “At your service.” He smiles and tucks my hand around his arm.

  We’re standing inside the door of St. Peter’s Church in Bethnal Green. My ears ring with anxiety that drowns out the pealing bells and organ music. As we enter the sanctuary, I’m afraid I’ll trip on the hem of my wedding dress, a simple, modest frock in dove-gray silk blushed with pink. I didn’t want a white gown; that’s for a young, virginal bride, and I’m a thirty-three-year-old woman of considerable experience. My hands are clammy in my white kid gloves. My bouquet of white roses trembles.

  “Relax, Sarah,” Hugh says. “This is nothing compared to a day on the job.”

  Hugh and I are crime photographers and reporters for the Daily World newspaper, and too many of our assignments have involved confrontations with murderers. I flex my left shoulder, which still aches from the gunshot wound I incurred during the last confrontation. But although I narrowly escaped death, my life afterward returned to some semblance of normalcy. I can’t imagine this day as resulting in anything less than a complete upheaval of my existence, a transformation of myself from a spinster into a wife.

  Hugh and I start down the aisle. The church is cold and smells of burning candles. Colored light from the stained-glass windows bathes us. I’m already out of step with the organ playing the bridal march. The aisle seems a hundred miles long. As we near the guests who rise from their seats at the front of the church, I’m glad the clerk at the dress shop talked me into buying a veil. Pinned to my coronet of braids, it shields me from close scrutiny. On my left, my few friends turn to watch me and smile. They’re vastly outnumbered by the guests on the other side. My betrothed’s aunts and uncles, cousins and family friends, none of whom I’ve ever met, crane their necks. I hear murmurs of “She doesn’t look like her pictures in the newspaper.” I falter, uncomfortably reminded that I’m notorious on account of the Daily World’s coverage of my exploits.

  “That’s Lord Hugh Staunton,” someone whispers. “Gorgeous, isn’t he?”

  Muted grumbles echo through the church, and now it’s Hugh’s turn to falter. The guests must have heard about the scandal two years ago, when the vice squadron raided a club for homosexual men and Hugh was among those caught in compromising circumstances.

  Someone else whispers, “Why is he walking her down the aisle?”

  Hugh is my dear friend, who has stood by me through the most perilous times in my life, despite the cost to himself. My one regret about this day is that my father, Benjamin Bain, can’t do the honors. He’d been missing for twenty-four years before we reunited last month. The prime suspect in the 1866 murder of a young girl, he’s a fugitive from the law. He lives under a false name and avoids the public eye lest he be recognized, reported to the police, and arrested. The punishment for murder is, of course, death by hanging.

  Now I spot my future mother- and father-in-law. She’s small, slender, and pretty, dressed in blue. He’s in his best brown suit, leaning on a cane. Doubt tinges his smile. Her smile doesn’t conceal her dislike of me, and the peacock feather in her hat quivers with her antagonism. I experience a sudden urge to turn and run. What am I getting myself into? Is it too late to back out? I clench my jaw and direct my gaze straight ahead.

  White candles and a bouquet of white roses adorn the altar. In front of it stands the solemn vicar in his black cassock and white surplice. My bridesmaid—my half sister Sally Albert—smiles and dabs her handkerchief at tears that have fallen on her rose-colored frock. My other dear friend, fourteen-year-old Mick O’Reilly, grins behind my camera and tripod, holding the flashlamp. His red hair sticks up in a cowlick, but his freckled face is scrubbed clean, and he hasn’t had time to outgrow his new suit. Not every bride is lucky enough to have at her wedding two friends with whom she’s faced death and survived, who’ve proven themselves willing to die for her. And there, with his best man, is my soon-to-be husband, Detective Sergeant Thomas Barrett. He’s so handsome in his dark-gray morning coat and striped trousers, black tie, and white waistcoat and shirt, a white gardenia boutonniere on his lapel. He’s tamed his unruly dark hair with pomade. As he smiles at me, his crystalline gray eyes brim with love.

  Everyone else recedes into a blur. He’s the man I fell for the moment I first laid eyes on him, when my attraction seemed doomed to be unrequited. And now he’s mine! I’m barely conscious of Hugh releasing my hand, Sally taking my bouquet, the organ music stopping, and explosions of white light as Mick takes photographs. As Barrett and I stand side by side, my heart races with such giddy joy that if it weren’t for the audience and the solemnity of the occasion, I would jump up and down. This ceremony is no longer an ordeal but a gateway to a new life that I’m eager to begin.

  The vicar says, “In the presence of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we have come together to witness the marriage of Sarah Bain and Thomas Barrett, to share their joy and to celebrate their love.” After his speech about the purpose and sanctity of marriage, he says, “If anyone present knows a reason why they should not marry, declare it now or forever hold your peace.”

  When Barrett’s mother doesn’t speak up, I sigh with relief.

  “Thomas, will you take Sarah to be your wife? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and protect her, and, forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?”

  I’m not used to thinking of, let alone calling, Barrett by his Christian name, but I suppose I’ll have to start soon.

  “I will,” he says.

  “Sarah, will you take Thomas to be your husband? Will you love him, comfort him, honor, obey, and protect him, and, forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?”

  “I will.” My voice trembles with my lifelong fear of speaking in front of an audience.

  After prayers and a Bible reading, Barrett and I face each other; we join hands, and the vicar prompts us through our vows.

  “I, Thomas, take you, Sarah, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward; for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.”

  He looks more serious than I’ve ever seen him, and I’m so moved that I stumble through my vows and hardly attend to what I’m saying. “I, Sarah, take you, Thomas … till death us do part.”

  “Heavenly Father,” the vicar says, “let this ring be a symbol of eternal love and faithfulness, to remind Thomas and Sarah of the vow and covenant which they have made.”

  Barrett tugs on my left glove to bare my finger through the slit designed for that purpose. He slips the plain gold band on my finger. The ring feels strange, but it fits, and it’s warm from his hand.

  “I hereby proclaim you husband and wife.” The vicar joins our hands together. “Those whom God has joined together, let no one put asunder.”

  Barrett pulls me closer to him. He lifts my veil, his smile turns mischievous, and his eyes gleam with daring. He lowers his face to mine.

  Oh my God—he’s going to kiss me!

  For the groom to kiss the bride at a wedding is an old custom that’s now considered undignified. But as our mouths touch, I don’t care what anyone thinks. Ignoring the murmurs and giggles and my new mother-in-law’s horrified gasp, I melt into my husband. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.

  Screams, shrill with terror, cut through my dazed bliss.

  Barrett and I spring apart. His face
wears the same alarmed expression that I feel on my own and see on everyone else’s. We all turn toward a door near the front of the church. There stands the charwoman in apron and headkerchief, fluttering her hands.

  “Murder!” she screams. “Help!”

  A hubbub of consternation ripples through the pews. Barrett and I look at each other, dumbfounded. Murder is a staple of our work, but how terrible if indeed it’s happened during our wedding.

  The vicar says, “Surely you’re mistaken, Mrs. Johnson. Why don’t you have a cup of tea in the kitchen, and I’ll speak with you when I’m finished here.” The Reverend Douglas Thornton is in his sixties, tall and wiry of physique. With his stern countenance and old-fashioned side-whiskers, he looks the typical rigid, sanctimonious clergyman. But Barrett has told me that the Reverend Thornton is a kind man and longtime family friend. He was certainly kind to me at our prenuptial meeting. He tried to put me at ease, and he didn’t criticize my manner of living, about which Mrs. Barrett must have told him plenty.

  “No! I ain’t mistaken; I know what I seen. There’s been a murder, in the crypt!”

  Sir Gerald Mariner rises from his seat in the pews that contain my guests. He’s the owner of the Daily World—my employer. Tall and stout in his expensive suit, he addresses a group of men on the opposite side of the aisle. “It sounds like a matter for the police. What are you waiting for?”

  The men—Barrett’s friends from the police force—rush toward the door. Barrett gives me a rueful look. “I’m sorry.” He’s the ranking officer present, and if there’s been a crime, it’s his responsibility to handle it.

  “It’s all right,” I say. “Go.”

  He joins the rush. So do Sir Gerald and two of the tough, silent men who work for him as servants, bodyguards, and only he knows what else. Any other bride might break down in tears to have her wedding interrupted by a murder, but not me. I follow the horde. Working for the newspaper has conditioned me to hasten to crime scenes at any hour of the day or night. Although I have today off, the familiar surge of dread and excitement propels me. Hugh and Mick are already lugging the camera equipment after the crowd, which has grown to include all the male guests.

  A hand on my arm restrains me. I turn to see my mother-in-law, who’s asked me to call her Mildred but whom I still think of as Mrs. Barrett.

  “Sarah, come and sit down.” She gestures toward the pews, in which other women are huddled. “What a terrible thing to happen at your wedding. I hope it’s not a bad omen.” The gleam in her eye belies her words. She must have been hoping until the last minute that the marriage wouldn’t happen, and now she probably likes to think it may be of short duration.

  I’d rather view a murder scene than listen to her snipe at me as she usually does. Pulling free of her, I say, “I’m sorry; I have to go.”

  Mrs. Barrett folds her arms, sniffs, and says, “Well!”

  From the door through which the horde has vanished, Sally beckons me. “Hurry, Sarah!” A ladies’ features reporter for the Daily World, she’s eager to cover a murder story if there is one. She would prefer it to writing articles about fashion and cookery.

  We trail the stampede down a passage I’ve never seen. I’ve been in this church only once before, when Barrett and I met with the vicar to arrange the wedding and receive the mandatory prenuptial advice. A wedding usually takes place in the bride’s parish, but I haven’t belonged to a church or attended a service since 1866, the year my father disappeared, hence my wedding here in Bethnal Green at the Barrett family’s church. A narrow flight of stairs leads us to the crypt. I fling back my veil, the better to see. People fill a long cavern, its walls and low arched ceiling made of brick. A few lights burn in glass globes mounted on pipes near the stairs. The smell of gas fumes mingles with the foul cesspool odor that permeates cellars throughout the city. The cavern’s distant end is lost in darkness. This end is narrowed by crates, furniture, coal bins, stacked wooden planks, and odds and ends placed against the walls. Arched doorways lead to chambers that are all dark except for the third on the left, from which dim light emanates. People press close to it for a look inside.

  Sally pulls a notebook and pencil out of her handbag and asks the charwoman, “What happened?”

  Breathless, Mrs. Johnson says, “I came down to fetch some coal, and I saw the light, and when I looked in, there he were!”

  Amid exclamations of shock and horror, Barrett’s voice issues from within the room: “This is a crime scene. Stand back.”

  So it is indeed murder. My heart simultaneously sinks and beats faster. Sally and I jostle through the crowd, past the police constables, into a chamber that measures some twenty feet square. Hugh, Mick, Barrett, the vicar, and Sir Gerald are staring at the man sprawled in the center of the floor. The large crimson blotch across the man’s white shirt draws my attention, like the bull’s-eye on a target, eclipsing all else about him. Sally gasps. Hugh retches and flees the chamber; he has a weak stomach. My heart lurches, my muscles flinch, but I’ve seen so many corpses—some in far worse condition—that I can look and not faint or be sick.

  “He was stabbed.” Barrett points to a slit on the upper left side of the man’s shirt.

  Sir Gerald seems unfazed by the spectacle of death, which he must have seen in all forms during a youth spent on merchant ships that sailed all over the world. “The weapon’s missing. The killer must have pulled it out and taken it away.”

  Mick sets down my camera. “This’s like bringin’ coals to Newcastle.”

  Now I see four other large cameras on tripods positioned around the room’s perimeter, between carved stone sarcophagi. The church is old enough that the dead are still interred in the crypt. Atop the sarcophagi, open suitcases contain boxes of negative plates and flash powder, spare lenses, and other supplies. The dead man was a photographer. A dizzy feeling unbalances me, and the air shimmers like gauze on a windy, moonlit night. It’s as if I’m having a vision of my own future demise.

  Barrett speaks to the crowd: “Everyone except the police officers, please go back upstairs.” Amid mutters of reluctance, I hear the mass exodus from the crypt.

  “Sarah, what’s that in his hand?” Barrett asks.

  It’s a black rubber bulb connected to a narrow red rubber hose that snakes across the floor and rises up to one of the cameras. The end of the hose is fastened to a plunger on a metal tube at the base of the lens.

  “It’s a self-timer device,” I say, glad to focus on the surroundings rather than the body. “You pull the plunger to draw air into the tube. When you squeeze the bulb, it opens a valve in the tube, and the air releases and triggers the shutter.”

  Comprehension lights Barrett’s eyes. “So you don’t have to stay right by the camera to take a picture. Clever.”

  “Yes,” I say. “You can take a picture of yourself, from a distance. Which is helpful when it’s a group photograph and you want to be in it.”

  “I never seen such a thing,” Mick says. “We don’t have one.”

  “Most photographers don’t,” I say. “Self-timers are a new experiment. They’re not on the market. Those I’ve seen were one of a kind, made by inventors.”

  “So he were takin’ pictures of himself,” Mick says, eyeing a battered wooden chair positioned opposite the camera with the timer. “But why down here?”

  The drab room seems to contain nothing that would merit four cameras. My gaze returns to the man, and I notice details that I previously missed. Rather stout, he wears black trousers and scuffed black boots. His mane of thick, wavy silver hair contrasts with his dark eyebrows, moustache, and beard. His features would be handsome if not for the mouth flaccid with death, the film that overlays the expression of shock in his blue eyes.

  “Do you know who he is?” Barrett asks the vicar.

  “No. I’ve never seen him before.” The Reverend Thornton’s sonorous voice has a faint hoarseness that I don’t remember. “And I can’t imagine how he got into the church. It’s kept lo
cked at night. We’ve had a problem with thieves. It was locked when I arrived this morning, and I noticed nothing amiss.” He tugs at his white clerical collar as if it’s too tight. He seems deeply shaken by the murder, as if he’s struggling to remain calm.

  “Does anyone besides you have the key?” Barrett says.

  “Quite a few people. And there’s a spare one hanging on the wall in the vicarage foyer.”

  I’m about to ask for names when my gaze snaps back to the body like an iron nail to a magnet and belated recognition jolts me. Memory serves up a man with darker hair, the same moustache and beard, a slimmer figure, and blue eyes that twinkle with his friendly smile.

  “Oh God. It’s Charles Firth!”

  Everyone stares at me. Sally says, “You know him?”

  “Yes.” I’m shaken, and not just because a victim at a murder scene is, once again, someone of my acquaintance. “He owned a photography shop in Whitechapel. He sold me my first camera. I’d already been to a dozen other shops, and the prices were so high I couldn’t afford them. He gave me a discount.” Grief wells up in me because a man so kind and generous to a stranger has met a violent end. “If not for him, I couldn’t have become a photographer.”

  “Oh, Sarah.” Sally hugs me. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Have you any idea why he was taking photographs in the church?” Barrett says.

  “No. I purchased equipment and supplies at his shop until he relocated and we lost touch. I’ve not seen him in perhaps ten years.”

  We’re all silent, contemplating the mysteries of fate. Then Sir Gerald says, “This could be a good story for the Daily World. Miss Albert, write it up.”

  “Yes, sir.” Sally sounds delighted by the assignment, even as she gives me an apologetic glance because of the circumstances. Here is her big opportunity to break into writing about important news, albeit at the expense of publicizing the misfortune that befell my wedding.

  The best man, a constable named John Young, says, “Barrett, the fellows and I will report the murder and fetch the police surgeon. You shouldn’t have to work today.” He and the other policemen depart.