The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë by Laura Joh Rowland Read Free Book Online Page A

House, and they fetched a constable, who told me to wait while he examined the corpse of Isabel White. The activity drew a noisy crowd that filled Paternoster Row, and they gawked at me as I sat outside the alley upon a chair someone had brought. Waves of nausea, trembling, and faintness besieged me. I had never seen anyone murdered, and the experience inflicted upon me a severe distress. Anne stood beside me, offering silent comfort. I closed my eyes, yet could not expunge from my memory the images of the blood, the knife, and worst of all, Isabel White’s lifeless stare. Desperately fighting the urge to vomit, I wished myself home in the peaceful isolation of Haworth.
    The constable emerged from the alley and stood before me. Clad in indigo trousers and a matching coat with shiny buttons down the front, he had sharp blue eyes in a face that reminded me of a fox. Rusty sideburns protruded from beneath his tall black hat.
    “I’m Police Constable Dixon,” he said.
    I’d had but one previous experience with the law, when a sheriff’s officer had come to the parsonage to order that Branwell either pay his debts or go to prison. I feared the power of the law, and the Metropolitan Police seemed as menacing a breed as the London thieves, swindlers, and cutthroats they were sworn to apprehend.
    “Your name and place of residence, please?” Constable Dixon penciled the information I gave him into a notebook. “Visitin’ town, then, Miss Brontë? A pity you should witness a crime.” His manner was sympathetic but businesslike. “Now I know as this’s been a terrible shock for you, but we need your help catchin’ the individual what killed that poor woman. Tell me everything as happened.”
    I nervously eyed the truncheon he wore at his waist. The crowd listened while I described what I’d seen, and the constable recorded it. He said, “Did you get a look at the perpetrator, miss?”
    Reliving the incident, I trembled as I shook my head. “The alley was dim, and I am nearsighted. But he wore dark clothes and a dark hat.” I suggested timidly, “Shouldn’t someone go looking for him?”
    “Well, now, miss, London’s a big city, and there’s plenty of men what fit that general description,” the constable said. “Can you recall anything else about ’im?”
    I exerted my memory, in vain. “No, sir. But I did know the murdered woman.” Interest stirred the crowd. “Her name was Isabel White.”
    “A friend o’ yours, then?” Constable Dixon said, writing.
    “Not exactly,” I said, although my sense of comradeship with Isabel made me feel that I had lost a friend. Tears and sour bile rose in my throat, and I gulped them down. “My sister and I rode on a train to London with her.” I described Isabel’s strange behavior, adding, “Perhaps the person she feared followed her here, then killed her.”
    “And would you know who that person might be?”
    “Miss White didn’t say.”
    “This is an interestin’ theory, miss,” Constable Dixon said, his polite tone laced with condescension. “But likely this was a robbery, and a thief killed the lady because she resisted when ’e tried to take ’er pocketbook. ’E must have got it anyway—there wasn’t nothin’ on ’er.”
    “But I cannot believe he was a common thief,” I protested. “He looked to be dressed like a gentleman.”
    “Ah.” Constable Dixon nodded sagely. “Then ’e must’ve been a swell mobsman.” Seeing my puzzled expression, he explained, “Swell mobsmen is criminals who get themselves up fancy and loiter about the banks. When they sees someone take out lots of money, they follows the person and robs ’im. Likely, that’s what happened to Miss White.” The constable closed his notebook.
    I was unconvinced. Although I knew nothing about solving crimes, and I recognized the audacity and danger of telling the law what to do, I felt compelled to say, “Miss White told me that she was governess in the house of a Mr. Joseph