Chapter 6
928 Words
Chapter Six
The cab yard – tea for the taxi-men – Arkwright, reprise
The cab yard on Handel Street was dominated by an old stable that had been rebuilt into a mechanical workshop. Charlie paused a moment to watch the mechanics at their arcane craft before heading further into the yard. The steam-cabs themselves were parked neatly along one wall, the pride of the cabmen obvious in the glossy finish of woodwork, the deep lustre of the leather trimmings, the gleaming polished metalwork. Each cab had its name inscribed on a neat little brass plate—“Black Bess”, “Swiftsure”, “Steam King”, “Hurricane”, “Brass Comet”. While their boilers and mechanisms followed the same basic pattern, no two were quite alike. Charlie wondered whether each was built to a new plan, or whether the cabmen altered their vehicles to suit themselves.
“Looking for a cab, sir?” a voice said, seemingly coming from a pile of old clothes. On closer investigation, Charlie saw a weathered, gnomelike face protruding from between a shabby stovepipe hat and a greatcoat with a cab licence pinned to it.
“I’m looking for someone who might know a man with badge 899,” Charlie said.
“Why do you ask?” the old man said, suddenly suspicious.
“Oh, I don’t mean to cause the fellow any trouble. I’m afraid I’ve some bad news. He’s… he’s dead.”
The old man’s corncob pipe dropped from his mouth. “No! Young Freddy? And him to be married next month.”
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Charlie said. “The police will be by, eventually. I imagine that they’ll be telling his next of kin first.”
“That’ll be his girl Sue. Freddy was an orphan. No other family. How did he come to die?”
“The police are uncertain as to whether it was an accident or murder.”
“The Devil!” the old man snarled, his fists clenching within their greasy woollen mittens. “Come over here, sir. We’ll talk.”
The old man introduced himself as Ezekiel and led Charlie over to an iron stove in the corner, where a half a dozen cabmen were brewing tea or warming their hands. They stood to a sort of surly attention when this well-dressed young man approached, but Ezekiel gestured for them to stand at ease.
“This gennelman is Mr Charlie, lads,” Ezekiel said. “He’s got some bad news. Harry, give him a mug of tea.”
Charlie told his story, from meeting Freddy to finding the cabman’s body. One of the other cabmen began sobbing, and ran away when Charlie got to the part about Freddy’s crushed skull.
“That was Short Tom,” Ezekiel said. “Young Freddy was like a brother to him. Fred used to watch over him when they was in the workhouse together. Taught him to tend an engine and got him assigned his first cab. This’ll be hard on the poor young feller.”
“Assigned? I thought you must own your cabs,” said Charlie.
There was some low laughter around the stove. “No, sir, bless you, no,” Ezekiel said. “The likes of us couldn’t afford a steam-cab. They’re owned by the yard. They get running costs plus a share of the profits.”
“The lion’s share!” a tall man said. He leaned against the red brick wall of the yard, casting bitter looks at his enamel mug.
“We can tell his lordship how a cab yard works another time,” said a burly man in a pea-jacket. “What I want to know is did Freddy die accidental?”
“No chance it was accidental, like,” said a bearded man with no eye teeth. “Freddy knew his way around an engine as well as anybody here. He wouldn’t have poked his head in without every valve shut and every brake on.”
“Well, usually,” the burly man said. “If he was in a hurry, mind…”
“No, not him,” Ezekiel said. “And not with a passenger in the seat.”
“I’ve had to do repairs with passengers in tow.”
“Halfway home, right enough, but at his front door? What would he have said if this gennelman woke up? ‘Here you are at home, sir, but I left you to nap while I did some work on the engine. Hope you don’t mind, but I left the meter running…’”
“But who would murder him?” Charlie asked, sipping his tea. It was stronger than what he was used to, and far sweeter. “Not a robber, surely. I had cash and a watch, and yet I was left unmolested. I say, this really is quite excellent tea. Where did you get it?”
“Me brother’s a mudlark, down by China Docks,” the burly man said. Charlie had no idea what this meant, so he nodded slyly and tapped his nose, which seemed to serve.
“At any rate, he wasn’t murdered by a robber,” Charlie said. “And the odds of a personal enemy happening to run into him in Pimlico seem fairly slim.”
“He’d no enemies.”
“Well,” Charlie said. “Perhaps he had one.”
Ezekiel cast a curious eye over Charlie. “It’s a police matter, I reckon,” he said.
“Only if we don’t find the bugger before the coppers do,” the gap-toothed cabman said, eliciting a chorus of approval from the other cabmen.
Ezekiel still had his eye on Charlie. “What’s your interest in this, sir?”
Charlie frowned, uncertain himself. The strangeness of the situation began sinking in. Here was he, second in line to a peerage, drinking tea in a grimy yard. Freddy was the cabmen’s friend, their colleague. Their concern. Why was he intruding so?
“I don’t know,” he said. “Freddy seemed a decent fellow. From what you say, he must have had a deucedly hard life, an orphan and such. Then here he is, a steady job, a fiancée and everything looking up for him. Now… It doesn’t seem fair.”
Charlie looked about the circle of cabmen, who looked back at him with something akin to pity. “There’s a lot in life what don’t seem fair,” Ezekiel said gently. “If’n you knows where to look. Thank you, sir, for bringing the news. There’s not many gennelmen who’d be such a gennelman.”
It took Charlie a moment to realise that he was being dismissed. “I’ll see myself out,” he said.
As he crossed the cobbled courtyard, the door to the yard opened. In strode the blocky form of Sergeant Arkwright.
“Well, well, well, Mr Decharles,” he said. “What an hauspicious hoccurance to see you again.”
- Writer
