Murder As A Fine Art Part 21

"I do not think so," Emily responded.

"I'm sorry. If I did anything to offend..."

"The last place in the world I plan to go is the house where we're staying. Has it slipped your mind that the killer rented it for Father and me?"

The implications had a solemn effect.

"If Father is in danger, so am I. The killer might decide to torment me as a way of tormenting Father. Inspector Ryan, are you prepared to post guards at the house? How many would be required? Is there any guarantee that the guards would be effective?"

Ryan didn't have an answer.

"Very well," Emily concluded, "since we know that the killer has been following Father and me and since the governor a.s.sures me that this prison is the safest place in London, I shall remain here."

BEYOND COLDBATH FIELDS PRISON, the smoke from London's half-million chimneys mingled with the yellow fog spreading from the Thames, obscuring the city. Ash drifted down. But even without the concealing presence of the fog, the artist of death would not have attracted suspicion. The few people he encountered-unavoidable business forcing them to muster their bravery and hurry along the otherwise deserted streets-gave him a look of grat.i.tude. He nodded rea.s.suringly in return.

He carried a ripping chisel concealed up the sleeve of his coat. Eighteen inches long, it had a sharp edge on one end and a hook on the other, it too possessing a sharp edge. The tool was favored by demolition workers, who swung the hook into walls and then yanked down, tearing out chunks of wood or plaster.

A ripping chisel had been employed in the second Ratcliffe Highway murders forty-three years earlier. Those murders had occurred in a tavern near the shop where the first murders had been committed twelve days previously. Three people had died in the second attack while there'd been four victims in the first, one of them an infant. Already the artist had improved on those events by slaughtering five people, two of them children. But while he intended to demonstrate his talents in a tavern tonight, just as the killer had done forty-three years earlier, this tavern would not be near the shop in which he had performed his skills on Sat.u.r.day night. No, a great artist needed to expand his horizons, just as he needed to compress the time in which he showed his creations to his public. Twelve days between masterpieces was too long. A s.p.a.ce of a mere two days would achieve a greater effect.

A man scurrying through the fog looked frightened when he almost b.u.mped into the artist, but then the man's tense expression relaxed. Nodding with relief, the man hurried on while the artist walked with a confident, easy, a.s.suring manner. Gas lamps provided only slight halos. Except for the clatter of a few distant carriages, the night was silent.

The artist pa.s.sed a constable-he'd lost count of the number of policemen guarding the streets tonight-and made a gesture that all was well. As he reached his destination, he nodded to a frantic man hurrying by. The man carried a basket of something that must have been important, perhaps his family's evening meal. Did the fool believe that the evening meal was worth his life?

The artist saw yet another constable, this one standing beneath a nearby gas lamp. Again, an all-is-well signal was exchanged.

When the artist stepped into the tavern, the occupants jerked their heads up, startled. At the sight of him, however, all except one man relaxed and returned to their conversations or their beer mugs or their pipes.

There were eight occupants in the smoke-filled room. The tavernkeeper, wearing a white ap.r.o.n looped around his neck, stood behind a counter on the right. Two men sat on stools at the counter. In back, a barmaid-also wearing a white ap.r.o.n-brought a plate of bread and cheese to three men sitting at a table near the fireplace. At a table in front, a weary-looking constable jumped to his feet, the only man who wasn't a.s.sured by the artist's arrival.

"Sorry, Sergeant," he blurted. "I've been outside so long and it's so cold out there, I couldn't-"

"Not to worry, Constable. I understand. The truth is my feet are frozen, and I came in here for the same reason you did. What are you having? Tea? Perhaps I'll join you."

The tavernkeeper grinned. "Better yet, Sergeant, I'll pour you a pint. No charge."

"No, thanks," the artist replied. "Breaking one rule is bad enough. But drinking alcohol on duty-I don't think so."

"You're on duty sure enough. Keeping us safe. We thank you for it. Hot tea on the house."

"You're very kind."

The constable's helmet was on the table. It contained a metal liner that strengthened it sufficiently for the constable to be able to stand on it and peer over fences. It was also strong enough to withstand a heavy blow to the head from someone sneaking up behind him. But not when it was on the table.

As the artist walked past the constable, he dropped the ripping chisel from inside his sleeve and swung it, using the blunt part of the hook to crush the constable's skull. Without stopping, he pivoted and swung three more times, right, left, right, shattering the heads of the three men about to eat their sandwiches. The barmaid gaped. The curve of the hook whacked across the side of her head and drove her unconscious onto the floor.

"Hey!" the tavernkeeper managed to say.

By then, the two men at the counter had blood erupting from their skulls as the iron bar found its targets. The tavernkeeper never had a chance to say another word before the artist swung powerfully.

In a rush, the artist turned the iron bar so that the sharp end of the hook was now available. He toppled the constable off the bench, placed a foot on the constable's chest, and brought the hook to his throat.

The artist did the same to the men who'd been about to eat their sandwiches. To the barmaid. To the men lying near the counter. To the tavernkeeper.

But the masterwork was not yet complete. After leaving the ripping chisel on the counter, the artist propped the victims over tables or the counter so that, except for the blood, they gave the appearance of having drunk too much and fallen asleep.

His uniform was spattered with blood, but he needed more. He scooped two handfuls from a pool on the floor and smeared it over his face and his neck, obscuring his features.

He opened the back door.

Then he hurried to the front door, took several deep breaths to make it appear he was winded after a struggle, and staggered outside, moaning to the constable under the gas lamp, "Murder!"

"Sergeant!" The constable rushed toward him.

"Help!"

The artist fell to the cobblestones.

Overwhelmed, the constable pulled his clacker from his equipment belt and frantically swung its handle. Its racket couldn't fail to be heard for a considerable distance, attracting every patrolman in the area.

"Inside," the artist moaned. "They're all dead."

The narrow, fogbound street erupted into chaos, neighbors racing toward the tavern and the clacker's din, their voices rising in fear.

"What's happened?"

"My G.o.d, look through the door!"

"Butchered!"

"It can't be! I saw Peter only an hour ago!"

"Martha's dead also? No!"

Constables charged along the street, their murky forms like ghosts in the fog.

"What's happened?"

"Murdered? Who?"

"Everybody, keep away from the door! You can't go in there!"

"Do what he says! Keep away!"

"Sergeant." The constable who'd sounded the alarm knelt beside the artist, who lay on the cobblestones, moaning, his face and uniform covered with blood. "I sent for a wagon. We'll get you to a surgeon."

"Too late."

"We'll do everything we can. The man who did this-did you see him?"

"Dressed like a sailor."

"Did he have a yellowish beard?"

"No beard. He looked like any other sailor."

"Did you see where he went?"

"Out the back door. Your face is a blur."

"Here's the wagon. We'll get you to a surgeon. You two! Help me put the sergeant into the wagon! The rest of you, the killer escaped out the back! Look for a sailor!"

With his eyes closed, the artist felt arms lift him and settle him into the wagon. Amid the shouting in the street, the wagon b.u.mped forward.

"Easy!" the constable warned.

"You can get him to the surgeon quick, or you can take your time and get him there dead!" the driver shouted back.

The constable made sounds as if climbing aboard. "Well, we don't want him dead from the d.a.m.ned ride either!"

Two other constables climbed aboard.

"Look out for sailors!" someone in the crowd yelled. "A blasted sailor did this!"

Sailors won't be difficult to find, the artist thought. The docks are only a quarter mile away.

The wagon b.u.mped over more cobblestones.

"He stopped moaning," the constable said. "I think we're losing him! Hurry!"

The clatter of hooves increased, as did the violent motion of the wagon. The angry roar of the crowd receded into the fog.

"The surgeon's house should be just up ahead," the driver insisted. "In the fog, I can't quite... There!"

Someone pounded on the surgeon's door while hands lifted the artist from the wagon and carried him toward lamplight that he saw through squinted eyes.

"Inside!" a man ordered.

Hands carried him through a doorway, then another doorway, setting him on a table.

"There's so much blood," the surgeon exclaimed, "I don't know where he's been wounded."

Through squinted eyes, the artist saw that the surgeon wore nightclothes.

"Is he dead?"

"No, I feel him breathing. I need room to work. You two go outside. You, help my wife bring hot water."

Footsteps hurried in various directions.

Hands unb.u.t.toned the artist's coat.

"Can you hear me, Sergeant?"

The artist moaned.

"I'll do everything possible to save you."

The artist allowed his eyelids to flicker open. A spectacled, gray-haired man in his fifties leaned over him.

The artist glanced around the room. It was empty.

Resolve and skill meant everything. The artist slipped a dagger between the surgeon's ribs, piercing the man's heart. He slid from under the collapsing surgeon and positioned the corpse on the table. At once he heard footsteps in the hallway and stepped to the side of the door.

A constable rushed past him, carrying a bowl of steaming water. A gray-haired, middle-aged woman hurried after him. Since her hands were free and a possible, though unlikely threat, she died first, with a dagger to her right kidney.

Hearing her moan and fall, the constable turned, holding the steaming bowl of water. The artist slashed his throat, incapacitating his voice box so that he couldn't cry out. As the constable slumped, the artist grabbed the bowl so that it wouldn't fall and shatter, attracting the two policemen who'd been sent outside.

Unfortunately, blood had gushed into the water, making it useless. But presumably there would be more in the kitchen. After setting the bowl on the floor, the artist hurried toward the back of the house. No one was in the kitchen. More water was in a pot that dangled over the hearth.

He washed blood from his hands and face. He took off the crimson-streaked sergeant's uniform. Under it, he wore the ragged clothes of a beggar. The double layers had not been conspicuous because the cold forced many people to wear extra garments. From filthy pants, he removed a filthy hat and tugged it over his head, concealing his features.

At the front of the house, a door opened, one of the policemen calling in, "How is he? Will he live?"

The artist opened the back door and stepped outside, disappearing into the fog. From nearby streets, the shouts of hunters and the screams of quarry reverberated through the night. The artist's masterpiece was already in progress, sounding as if it would be even more splendid than he hoped.

THE GERMAN SAILOR had a workable knowledge of English. That morning, he'd arrived after a six-month voyage from the Orient, the British East India Company's vessel laden with tea, spices, and opium. After he'd found a rooming house, he paid for a servant to carry a tub and pails of hot water to his room. Sitting with his knees drawn to his chest in the small container, he'd luxuriated in the cleansing heat of the water. Decent food came next, anything that didn't have fish in it. Tomorrow, he would use his voyage money to buy fresh clothes, but for now, he had greater needs. A woman serviced him at the end of an alley, no language necessary-all he needed to do was extend two s.h.i.+llings.

Then a tavern. By all means, a tavern. The German sailor hated English beer, but he hated gin even worse, and English beer was better than nothing. His pent-up need for alcohol couldn't be satisfied, no matter how many mugs he drank and how many times he visited the privy behind the tavern. A woman at the bar gave him a look that suggested she also might be in the market for two s.h.i.+llings, but then a man perhaps offered her three s.h.i.+llings because she went upstairs with him. Finally the sailor felt bloated and tired enough to return to the rooming house, provided he could remember which direction to take.

The cold, yellow fog surrounded him as he stumbled along narrow streets. In the tavern, his limited English had made him understand parts of conversations, most of them about killings that had occurred two nights earlier, but he didn't understand the details, and he was too tired to care, although it did strike him as odd that the mood in the tavern had not been as energetic as he had expected.

Putting a hand to a soot-covered wall to steady himself, he heard a terrible noise in the distance and was slow to identify it as a London policeman's clacker. Immediately he heard other clackers as well as shouting, a panicked commotion at the end of the street. The din was enormous.

"Murder!" someone yelled.

Someone else shouted something about "Sailors!"

The shouts merged with boots rus.h.i.+ng along the street, some of them coming in the sailor's direction. Dim streetlamps showed the fog swirling as figures charged through it.

The sailor ducked into an alley. The crowd roared into view. Hiding in shadows, he watched the murky shapes run past. They continued to shout something about sailors.

Trembling, he again felt pressure in his swelling bladder. He held it, waiting for the mob to pa.s.s. Some had knives. Others had swords. One carried a rifle.

The pain in his bladder intensified. s.h.i.+fting deeper into the alley, he waited until he couldn't see the lamp or the street. Urgently he unb.u.t.toned his pants and released a trickle against a wall. Despite the night's chill, sweat beaded his face as his bladder insisted on being emptied more swiftly.

"What do I hear?" someone asked from the street.

The German sailor's English was good enough for him to understand. Instantly he stopped.