What the Dickens

As another street urchin was trapped in the spokes of his hired Hansom Cab and thrown headlong into an adjacent town house basement well, Josiah Raskelf mused to himself on his good fortune in discovering a most interesting document which could be to his ultimate gain. The acquisition of the document had been undertaken with much stealth and guile from a second hand book seller in the less celubrious part of Fish Town, the bit which moved around on the ebbing tide of the all dominating muddy estuary. The flickering coal gas mantles had made the scouring of the display shelves for any antique book treasures problematic but there was no mistaking the sound of good quality parchment slipping from the pages of a weighty tome entitled ' Marrying for Financial Advantage in Victorian Society". After some undignified scrabbling around amongst the flotsam and jetsam on the semi submerged and rotting timber floor of the shop, the intriguing paper was retrieved. In elaborate copper plate handwriting Josiah found to his interest a detailed schedule of the widows of the town and what appeared to be a figure of their net worth in cash and property assets. The proprietor of the shop had finished his victuals of a large mutton bone washed down with warm ale and could be heard preparing for a stock taking visit to the inner sanctum in which Raskelf was encamped. In a deft sleight of hand the moneyed list was eased into the pages of the book and in a flourish he offered the grubby and insanitary shop keeper a shilling in return for the said book. Immediately suspicious of the well dressed and evidently affluent visitor to his very humble premises the owner, one Herbert Sprakeworthy insisted that the retail price was in fact nine shillings and sixpence including bookbinder tax. Raskelf showed no emotion in forking out the vastly inflated price again arousing the curiosity of the seller who now regretted not coming in at a considerably higher figure. So in due course Raskelf and his exciting find were on their way across Fish Town . Being a man of means and leisure he would enjoy a very prolonged period in which to deliberate a strategy to attain maximum exploitation of the bereaved womenfolk for minimum effort and entanglement. Alighting at his own residence he was fussed over by a small retinue of domestic servants who between the cab and his front door managed to provide him with a complete change of clothes and a good close wet shave and manicure. He dined alone and the fifteen courses were relished with extreme delight in anticipation of his forthcoming course of action. He slept fitfully, however, as befits a person with no soul or conscience and on a very full and bloated belly from the excesses of his dining table notwithstanding a tangible volume of his best Port wine. In the morning, sat at his study desk he considered whom he could recruit to undertake the shabby elements of his masterplan. Various brigands and thieves had served him well in the past but he doubted whether they had survived the onslaught of cholera, the attention of other competing villains and the complications of childhood ricketts. His Manservant, a threatening figure even in traditional attire, was a veritable human directory of the criminal fraternity and could provide contact details for any perpetrator for any requirement whatsoever. The task in hand, considered Raskelf, was rather specialised in that each of the potential victims would have to be wooed into relinquishing their fortunes rather than bludgeoned and beaten in the conventional manner of the time. It would be a long term project, there was no doubt about that. The targets would have to be carefully selected. It was entirely conceivable that the prettier ones would re-marry quickly being very sought after and particularly in the light of the guidance and instruction of chapter headings in the book in which he had first discovered the detailed list. He feared that he would be left with the dowdy matrons and righteous shockers and no amount of incentive or reward based proposals would entice an unscrupulous Player or Beau to partake in the scam. Perhaps, on reflection the project was destined to be just too arduous and fatiguing and not for him, whose aim in life was to enjoy the better things and reap the rewards from, as far as possible, the labours and tribulations of others. He felt there was little scope to pass on the information to another scallywag for a small consideration or even a profit share. Regrettably, but in his mind, entirely fittingly, he pushed the parchment document into the glowing embers of his fireplace and as it quickly scorched and curled into flame he ignited his most favourite brand of cigar and planned his next despicable endeavour with a most unflattering grin and escape of gas from the excesses of the previous evening.