their eyes on her as if they were her acolytes. All stories have a beginning so the inspector asked her to begin. The girl swept her eyes around the circle of her ward sisters. She began with ghosts and goblins. “Ah, wondrous,” Endersby said. Then he prompted her to tell a true story. “Go back in time,” he suggested. “Imagine yourself in the dark last night, in this very room.” The others began to shuffle. One child coughed. The girl began. “Last night, oh, last night.” Endersby sat forward. The girl told of a dark figure moving down the beds holding a candle and whispering.
“Indeed,” replied the inspector. “Why do you think he went about so?”
“Nothin’, sir … only wos ’ere to look … passed close by me, he did.”
“Did you see his face, by chance?”
“I dustn’t ’cause he was stinking so.” The others giggled. The girl blushed and pulled nervously at her sleeve. Endersby gave her a nod as if to say, “good work,” and the child came close again, cupping her chilly hand around Endersby’s ear.
“Ah,” replied Endersby, exaggerating his astonishment at her whispered words. “Are you certain?” The girl pressed closer.
“A broken limb, you say. A limp,” said Endersby.
The girl stepped back, proudly smiling. “Well done,” Endersby said.
Endersby waited a little longer, gazing in the faces of those around him. No other child stepped forward. Catching a nod from Matron Agnes at the door, he told the girls their porridge was waiting, to which announcement they shouted like a horde of fun-seekers at a seaside fair and dashed off to the eating hall. Pushing through the rush came Sergeant Caldwell, his notebook held in his right hand. Endersby stood up from the bed where he had relaxed his painful foot. Yet another gouty pang made him consider the details he had just heard.
“Sir,” said the sergeant next, “best, I reckon, if you walk around with me to see what I have seen.”
“…More things in heaven and earth?” quipped Endersby.
“Sir?”
“Mr. Hamlet, Sergeant. He has been stuck in my mind these last few days. At Covent Garden Theatre this past Friday I had the delight to see Mr. Macready play the lead role. Walk on. Let us see together. A few details were gained from talking to the little girls. One said she saw a limping man looking at the faces of the children.”
“And yet, sir, the child was left behind.”
“The wrong child, may we surmise?”
Chapter Three
Clues in the Coal
Caldwell led his superior down two staircases, through a kitchen, and into a cramped room containing the blackened coal chute. Thomas knew the case was already causing the inspector doubts. He knew Endersby’s gout would soon slow him down as much as his own toothache was draining his energy.
Standing in the doorway of the coal room, Endersby gazed first at the space, his way of pondering and examining a room before drawing a conclusion.
“Enter carefully, sir,” Caldwell cautioned, holding up a lit candle. “Stay to the right, sir. I shall explain.”
“I see it has been left open. This bottom flap,” Endersby said at the coal chute. He poked his head up the chute, which came down from the yard at a steep slant. The chute was mussed. Caldwell imagined a body had slid down it, kicked open the bottom flap and landed on the floor. The usual coal pile from a delivery had already been cleared into bins and into smaller buckets for haulage up to various hearths. Endersby noted immediately even a light brush of an elbow procured a sooty, oily stain. “Notice, sir,” said Caldwell, “a faint boot mark on the inside of the chute’s flap.”
“May we assume, Caldwell, the intruder pressed his boot to open the flap as well as to break the velocity of his slide?”
“Likely, sir. And see, we can make out even in this light at least six pairs of distinct boot marks leading from the chute toward the door over there.”
Endersby turned up one of his own boots; there was black dust on the sole and a shadowy print left behind on the floor. Caldwell did the same and when the two made their way to the door, they were careful to walk beside the other foot prints, comparing their own boot marks to them. “A telltale sign of some import,” Endersby said. “Note, the left boot has a worn heel — see the shape. And look at the right. The print is smudged and indistinct.” Caldwell bent down and slipped on his wire-rimmed spectacles.
“Most certain, Inspector, the left heel is not truly rounded on the outside. It seems as if the right boot were dragged on the floor as the culprit walked.” Endersby examined the boot mark from another angle. “The young girl I spoke to in the ward told me she saw a figure late in the night and he walked about as if he had a broken limb.” The two men closely examined the other prints. Outside the door to the coal room, the floor had already been washed, the footprints mopped away. “I question, Sergeant, the manner in which the culprit left the building. He did not return here and climb back out; the chute slant is too steep.”
“It is, sir.”
“And when did all of this skulking about take place? Shall we retrace the route the culprit may have taken from this coal chute to the upper ward?”
Endersby fell in behind his sergeant, who carried the candle aloft. “Sergeant. A partial sooty handprint,” said the inspector, joining him on a step. “A narrow palm, sir,” Caldwell replied. The inspector looked hard and said: “This little blotch of dried blood is, in fact, a scab left stuck to the brick.” Sergeant Caldwell slipped on his eyeglasses again.
A sudden slapping sound made the two men turn. Before them stood a round-faced man in a leather apron, his face and hands blackened by coal dust. He scowled and beat a thick leather strap against his apron.
“Who’s the cove that thinks I am a murderer?”
“Who are you, sir?” Caldwell said in a loud voice.
“Andrew Potter, sir. Coal carrier and devout Christian. I do not like my character slandered, sir, by the likes of you.”
Endersby stepped from behind Caldwell and introduced himself and his sergeant-at-hand. “Mr. Potter, there has been a mistake. We do not think nor do we accuse you of murder. We are in St. Giles to investigate…. You speak with a good tongue, sir.”
“For a coal carrier, sir? Yes. I take no offence at your observation. Mam was a teacher. Gave me a good tongue, a head for reading. Fell ill to the pox. Left me in this place, this St. Giles. Sent out to work at fourteen in the coal works, sir.”
“A body of one of the matrons has been found in the front foyer, near the hearth. I assume, Mr. Potter, you have been informed of this terrible discovery.”
Potter nodded. “Some here thinks I am the culprit, that I killed poor Miss Matty. Me, who works seven days hard labour a week — all night, rain or snow.”
“Are you innocent, sir?” Endersby asked outright.
The coal carrier drew back.
