Oliver Twist and the Mystery of Throate Manor Read online

  At these words, the heat of desperate madness overtook Jeremiah Throate. Wild schemes exploded in his mind, sending searing fragments to every convolution of his cerebral cortex. Should he strangle his mother and tear her necklace and rings from her person and offer them to the thugs waiting without? Should he reach for the paper knife on the nearby table and stab himself to death? Should he rush into the hallway and throw himself on the villains’ mercy? Even to his ravaged brain, this last option seemed the weakest. Throate was well aware that those swarthy cut-throats had no concept of the notion of mercy. It was as foreign them as was soap and water. Then, out of the ether, another solution materialised. With staring eyes, Throat glanced at the window and the garden and sky beyond.

  Escape.

  That’s what he had to do: escape.

  With a few bounds, he was by the window and unfastening the hasp. His mother gazed on in astonishment.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ she cried, jumping to her feet but by the time the words had left her mouth, her errant son had disappeared through the aperture and was racing across the lawn.

  Lady Throate sank back into her chair. ‘The world has gone mad,’ she muttered to herself, not quite realising that it was about to become a great deal madder.

  Some moments later, the door of the morning room crashed open and there stood two sinister and scruffy looking individuals. On observing them, Lady Throate very swiftly came to the conclusion that if some crazed scientist had attempted to create two beings that were half man and some part rodent, they would look like these creatures that stood before her, adopting what she assumed they believed was a menacing pose.

  ‘Where is he?’ said one of them.

  Lady Throate did not reply but just glanced at the open window. The two men rushed forward and leaned out. By now there was no sign of the fleeing Throate.

  ‘The devil. He’s escaped.’

  ‘Best get after him. We can’t afford to lose the blighter.’

  Like clowns at a circus, the two men crashed into each other as they both attempted to climb out of the window at the same time. They tried again, and once more they collided.

  ‘I’ll go first,’ said one of them, holding the other back.

  Eventually both men were out of the room and haring across the lawn. Slowly, almost as though she was in a trance, Lady Amelia Throate rose from her chair once more and slowly crossed to the window and closed it. She shook her head as though attempting to dispel the memory of the last few minutes from her mind. Although it was very early in the day, she felt in need of a glass of brandy which she hoped would help to restore life’s equilibrium.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Mr Gripwind steepled his fingers before his face and sighed. ‘A very unfortunate situation, my dear Oliver. Very unfortunate. And, indeed, unique in my experience. Certainly, as a young solicitor I was instructed to follow one of my client’s wives to ascertain as to whether she had a lover and was being unfaithful to said client – but that was not so much detective work as just being a bit of a sneak.’

  Oliver was seated opposite Mr Gripwind in his dusty office back at the Inns of Court. Sunlight filtered through the windows dappling the various piles of legal papers that decorated the chamber. He had just recounted the whole of his experiences at Throate Manor including the attempted murder of the old baronet and the task that had been imposed upon him by Sir Ebenezer to find his illegitimate son. He knew that he was going against the baronet’s wishes of keeping the matter secret, but he believed his obligations to his employer were far more important and essential. How could he carry out the task given him without Mr Gripwind’s knowledge?

  ‘Yes, yes,’ continued Mr Gripwind, expansively. ‘Detective work. Well, you must be about it, Oliver. We can neither deny nor disappoint our venerable client in his demands and obviously your investigations must be carried out with some alacrity. From what you say Sir Ebenezer may not be very long for this life. We must locate this illegitimate heir before the coffin lid is screwed down on the old fellow. Isn’t that so?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ agreed Oliver with little enthusiasm or conviction in his voice.

  ‘Good man. Now then, what will be your first manoeuvre? Do you have a plan of action?’

  ‘A very vague one, I suppose.’

  ‘Vague is not encouraging, but at least you do have something up your sleeve, eh?’

  It was obvious Mr Gripwind was eager for confirmation of this assumption. Oliver nodded.

  ‘Well, come, come. Pray tell.’

  ‘I intend to visit the orphanage where the child was lodged and see if I can ascertain what happened to him after that. However, I fear that it will be a little like trying to catch soap bubbles in the palm of your hand…’

  Mr Gripwind smiled at the young man’s conceit. ‘It is my experience that if you travel hopefully, it lightens the load of the journey, no matter how disappointing the destination reveals itself to be.’

  ‘I will bear that in mind,’ said Oliver.

  Tranton House was a shabby-looking Georgian town house situated south of the river in Battersea. The property looked so careworn that it was difficult to conceive that it had ever seen better days when its paintwork shone, its windows gleamed and the stone was bright and clean and shimmered like burnished gold in the sunlight. Everything about the property now seemed to indicate that it was fading away, turning to dust. Its frontage was blackened with age and traversed here and there by the mummified fingers of dead ivy. Even the weeds in the garden had died away creating an undulating seascape of crusted foliage.

  ‘Crikey,’ said Jack Dawkins as he gazed at the building, ‘it looks more like a haunted house from those pictures in story books rather than an orphanage.’

  Oliver nodded in agreement. ‘In many ways an orphanage is a haunted house,’ he observed quietly.

  Jack pulled a face. ‘My, that’s deep, Oliver. Very deep. Too deep for me, I reckon. I can’t get my head down that far.’

  Oliver smiled. ‘Take no notice of me. My mind is wandering.’

  Indeed, it was wandering, wandering back to a time he knew of, but could not remember. A time when he was housed as a baby in a similar establishment. He had been a scrap of mewling humanity with a dead mother, cast upon the world without a living soul who really cared for him. He shuddered at the thought and then with a Herculean shrug thrust it aside. That was the past and thank the Lord, it was dead and gone and it must remain so. As for now - there was business to conduct, a task to be performed, an investigation to carry out. He must be about it.

  With a funereal gait, Oliver and Jack walked down the pathway leading to the decrepit door of Tranton House. Raising the large rusty iron ring which served as a knocker, he rapped it twice on the flaking woodwork. He could hear its thunderous reverberations echoing into the far reaches of the building like distant cannon fire.

  After a brief interval, the door creaked open a few inches. At first, it seemed to the two men that it had performed this operation of its own volition or had been manipulated by some unseen ghostly hand but then lowering their sights they observed a small child, a ragged urchin peering out at them through the crack. Its scruffy face was smeared with dirt, the hair a tangle of knots and the eyes wild and staring. It was difficult at this stage to judge what sex this creature was and, even when it spoke with a squeaky, high pitched monotone, the conundrum was not solved.

  ‘What d’yer want?’ it asked.

  ‘We wish to speak to the person in charge of this orphanage. Mr Sponge.’ Oliver had only gleaned that one name in his researches regarding the establishment. He held out his card to the youth, who snatched it from him with a grubby claw.

  The child’s eyes widened. ‘There ain’t no Mr Sponge here, just old Ma Sponge. She’s the gaffer’.

  ‘Well, we certainly need to see the gaffer, young ‘un,’ observed Jack cheerily. ‘So why not take us to her. It is a matter of the utmost importance.’

  The child pursed its lips and
the eyes flickered erratically as it digested this suggestion. ‘Wait here,’ came the reply at length and the door closed.

  ‘An orphanage run by orphans,’ observed Oliver wryly.

  After a five-minute interval, the door opened again. This time an older child appeared in the aperture. This time there was no mistaking the sex. He was a tough looking youth of about eleven or twelve years of age. He was wearing a cheap suit and waistcoat with what had once been a fine silk cravat but now resembled a coloured dish rag. His hair had been plastered down by the application of some pungent oil.

  ‘Afternoon, gents. Am I correct in assuming that you are a wanting to see her ladyship, Mrs Sponge?’ he said grandly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Oliver. ‘We are here on legal business.’

  ‘What’s that then?’

  ‘Private stuff, young ‘un. Take us to Mrs Sponge,’ said Jack with an edge of aggression in his voice. He was fed up hanging around outside this mausoleum being interrogated by infants.

  His outburst did the trick. The youth opened the door wide and bade them enter with a ‘Follow me, gents.’

  They were led down a series of gloomy corridors past numerous doors behind which could be heard myriad children’s voices. Oliver was struck by the fact that while many of these youthful explosions were noisy, none seemed to be filled with a sense of happiness and good humour. There just shrieks of anger and moans of dismay. While these cries assailed their ears, not one child was observed, save for their comical guide. Oliver was reminded of his visits to the police cells he had visited in the course of his duties.

  Eventually, they reached a large door upon which the youth wrapped in a particular staccato fashion which to Oliver sounded very much like a code to provide assurance to occupant of the room of the identity of the visitor.

  A loud voice emerged from behind the oak panelling of the door. ‘Enter!’ it said, with all the imperiousness of Queen Victoria launching a ship.

  ‘In yer go, gents,’ said the young man, already retreating into the shadows.

  Oliver and Jack entered.

  The room was brightly lit and opulent. A fire blazed merrily in the grate and the furnishings, while somewhat gaudy in colour, were of the finest material. A chaise longue was situated by the fireplace and close by was a small table which housed a sherry decanter and glasses and an overflowing fruit bowl that boasted of black and green grapes, a pineapple and a trio of tangerines. It was, thought Oliver, a fur-lined womb within the bleak environs of Tranton House.

  The occupant of the room was sitting behind a large desk which was littered with documents and files. It was a woman of ample proportions, bursting out of a silk gown which to Oliver’s mind was more suitable for evening wear. For good measure, the lady had added a couple of chins to the one she had originally been given and had attempted to hold back time by the application of heavy make-up which bleached her cheeks and blackened her eyes. She gazed at her visitors through a lorgnette for some moments and then glanced down at Oliver’s card.

  ‘I am Madame Camilla Sponge,’ she announced grandly. ‘Which of you is Mr Twist?’ At first hearing, her voice sounded refined and cultured, but it soon became clear to Oliver that this was a performance, an adopted voice which was slipped on as one might an expensive item of clothing to disguise one’s penury. There was a slight undertone of roughness and artificiality which marred the perfection of her performance as a lady. This fact placed Oliver on his guard. By contrast, at first at least, Jack seemed taken in by the overt grandeur of Madame Sponge.

  ‘I am Oliver Twist.’

  ‘And the other gentleman…?’

  ‘This is my clerk, my trusted clerk, Jack Dawkins.’

  She turned her attention on Jack, holding the lorgnette closer to her eyes and viewing him as though he were a medical specimen in a lab. She wrinkled her nose in mild distaste.

  ‘Pray take a seat, gentlemen, and state your business. I am a busy woman. This orphanage don’t … doesn’t run itself. I have many duties, many calls upon my time.’

  ‘We are here in an attempt to trace one of the children you had in your charge twenty-five years ago.’

  Madame Sponge raised her not inconsiderable eyebrows and chuckled, her chins wobbling in unison. ‘My, we are going back some years.’

  ‘This was a time when you were in charge.’ Oliver knew this for certain. He had checked the records with diligence.

  Madame Sponge hesitated but could see from Oliver’s expression that to deny the fact would be a mistake.

  ‘Why yes. Of course, I was a very young girl then myself, you understand. Hardly out of kindergarten.’ She gave a high-pitched whinny of amusement of which any horse would have been proud.

  ‘You keep records…’

  ‘Of course we keep records. I run a very organised gaff here, I can assure you.’

  ‘So you knows who comes here, where from and then where the little blighters go when they are taken up?’ enquired Jack, cutting to the quick as always.

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘In the summer of 1825, a certain Miss Louise Clerihew left a child, an infant boy, only a few weeks old on your doorstep.’ said Oliver. ‘My client wishes to know what happened to this child. Who took him, adopted him.’

  ‘And who, may I ask, is your client?’

  Oliver shook his head gently. ‘I am afraid I am not at liberty to reveal his identity.’

  Madame Sponge snorted. ‘Hah. Liberty is it? We hear a lot about liberty in this city. It seems it is the provenance of the wealthy who can do what they like, obtain anything what they want just by asking. They are the ones who take the liberty! Well, Mr Twist, not in this case. You can run back to your nosey-parkering client and tell him that I am not at liberty to provide him with the information he requires.’ Madame Sponge flounced back in her chair with a self-satisfied smirk registered on her heavily made up face.

  Oliver had not expected this response and for some moments was struck dumb, not quite sure what to do next. Jack Dawkins, on the other hand, always ready to dive in at the deep end, did not hesitate to think before speaking.

  ‘You are so right, Mrs Sponge,’ he said leaning very close to Oliver as though he was about to whisper something in his ear but at the last moment appearing to think better of it. ‘Indeed, indeed,’ he continued in his natural jaunty manner. ‘We are just the dogsbodies in this matter only carrying out our client’s wishes – well not so much wishes more like demands. If we return empty-handed, it will be the worse for us, won’t it, Mr Twist?’

  Jack did not wait for Oliver to respond to this statement but carried on. ‘I am sure that we can come to some… arrangement that suits us both,’ he said, lowering his voice and grinning seductively.

  ‘What arrangement is that?’ asked Madame Sponge momentarily intrigued.

  Like a conjuror, Jack Dawkins held up his right hand and produced a bright shining sovereign apparently out of thin air. ‘We can… purchase the information required.’

  Madame Sponge leaned forward, lorgnette clamped to her face, her eyes ogling the golden coin.

  ‘This little beauty has a brother and sister,’ continued Jack and with a dextrous swivel of his fingers revealed two more sovereigns.

  The sight of all three coins caused Madame Sponge to lean even further forward and lick her lips avariciously.

  ‘All three can be yours if you will vouchsafe the information to us, Madame Sponge. A business deal between businesspeople. What do you say?’

  Without hesitation, she rose imperiously from her chair, her demeanour having taken a radical volte face. ‘Very well, gentlemen, under the circumstances, it seems your request is a reasonable one. I will see what can be done. If you will wait awhile, I will consult our records.’

  With a curt smile she swept from the room, her gown all a rustle and crackle.

  After her departure, Jack and Oliver burst out laughing. ‘A master stroke, Jack.’

  ‘I know the type. Pompous and imperious on the surf
ace but would sell their old mother to a body snatcher for sixpence.’

  ‘But tell me, where did you manage to obtain those sovereigns?’

  The smile faded from Jack’s face and he suddenly assumed a sheepish demeanour. ‘Ah, well, perhaps you’ll not be too happy about that?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They’re yours, Oliver. I just dipped you.’

  ‘You dipped me. You mean you picked my pocket?’

  Jack nodded dumbly. ‘Yeah. When I leaned close to you. I’m very skilled at that sort of thing, as you well know. You see, I knew that the old bird wouldn’t tell us what we wanted to know without a bribe. And they want to see the money in the flesh as it were. The flashing gold hypnotises ‘em. Now, as you are well aware, I ain’t got no cash to call my own, so…’

  ‘So you availed yourself of mine.’

  ‘I had to. Done the trick, though, hasn’t’ it?’

  Oliver had to admit that it had indeed ‘done the trick’. And as such he could not be angry with his friend. Indeed, he was impressed with his resourcefulness. He just wished that it had not been at his own expense. Three guineas would be hard to replace.

  ‘Let’s hope that the information Madame Sponge presents to us is worth it,’ he observed.

  It wasn’t long before the lady herself returned rustling into the room, carrying a small ledger. ‘I have here the details which I believe you require, gentlemen,’ she announced plonking the ledger on her desk with some force. ‘Now, before I divulge the information you require, we have a business transaction to conduct. We are talking cash terms.’

  With some reluctance, Jack Dawkins placed the three sovereigns down on the desk. With the speed of a lizard’s tongue, they were scooped up by Madame Sponge and slipped into a drawer.

  Picking up the ledger, she studied it for a few moments before addressing Oliver and Jack. ‘In September in the year of our Lord, 1825, a child of three months of age was left on the doorstep of the orphanage with a note asking that the mite be taken care of. The note was signed by someone called Louise. We took the child in and raised it until he was twelve years of age. I remember the critter well. He was a pale-faced rangy youth, tall for his age and somewhat delicate. We named the boy Tom. And he was eventually sold to an Amos Braggle as an apprentice carpenter in 1837. That, gentlemen, is all the information I have.’