Murder As A Fine Art Part 22

"I don't hear anything," someone said from the darkness at the end of the alley.

"Down there. Sounded like somebody taking a p.i.s.s."

"I still don't hear anything. Without a light and a lot more people, I ain't going in there anyhow. Even if you're right, it could be anybody. Could be one of us."

"I probably imagined it. We'd better catch up to the others. You're right-it ain't safe being out here alone."

Footsteps hurried down the street toward the sound of the mob.

In the darkness, the German sailor trembled and listened and waited and finally the pressure in his bladder was again too great to be denied. Once more, he released a stream against the wall.

At last, he b.u.t.toned his pants. Fear purged the effects of alcohol from his mind. He now remembered the location of his rooming house, but he needed to reach it without being seen. Perhaps if he removed his sailor's coat, that would stop him from attracting attention. The night was bone-chilling, but since the rooming house was only a quarter mile away, he could probably reach there in just his s.h.i.+rtsleeves without becoming numb.

He eased toward the alley's exit. As the fog-haloed lamp came into view, he dropped his sailor's coat and stepped into the street.

"See, I told you somebody was in there," a man said.

Threatening figures emerged from the fog. The sailor gasped.

"What's that he dropped?"

"A sailor's coat!"

"He wouldn't have thrown it away if he was innocent!"

The sailor blurted to them in German that they were making a mistake.

"A foreigner!"

"He's the murderer!"

The German ran.

The pain that entered his back felt like a punch. He looked down stupidly at a sword protruding from his stomach. As blood streamed down his pants, he tried to stagger forward and instead toppled.

"That's what you get for killing Peter and Martha, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

10.

In the Realm of Shadows.

IN 1854 LONDON, a journalist who spent several years compiling a four-volume study, London Labour and the London Poor, estimated that "there are upwards of fifty thousand individuals, or about a fortieth part of the population of the metropolis getting their living on the streets." Some pulled bones from rotting animal carca.s.ses they came across and sold them to fertilizer makers. Others picked up dog s.h.i.+t, known as "pure," and sold it to tanners, who used it in the chemical process of removing hair from leather. Crossing sweepers swept horses.h.i.+t from street intersections so that well-to-do pedestrians could move from sidewalk to sidewalk without soiling their shoes. Street musicians, ragmen, umbrella menders, match sellers, organ grinders, patterers who delivered the dying speeches of famous men, these and hundreds of other vagrants and wanderers ("a separate race," the journalist called them) filled the two thousand miles of London's streets.

Another term for them would be beggars, and under the calmest of conditions, beggars attracted little attention. After all, to notice them might lead to a compulsion to give them money, but one couldn't alleviate the condition of fifty thousand of them, not without becoming a beggar oneself, so it was wiser to pretend that they didn't exist. Especially on this h.e.l.lish night, when mobs roamed the streets searching for strangers and foreigners to punish for the terror that threatened the city, beggars received little attention. How could nonpersons be seen as a threat when they weren't truly seen at all?

One such ragged nonperson limped unchallenged through London's squalid East End. With the fog so thick, his shabby figure was even more invisible than usual as he navigated a labyrinth of dismal lanes. Hearing the gratifying roar of mobs in the distance, he reached a sagging building with a faded sign above its double doors: LIVERY STABLE. Barns for horses and vehicles were commonplace in London, where fifty thousand horses (their number matched that of beggars) were necessary for the carriages, cabs, coaches, carts, and omnibuses that crammed the city. Those vehicles would definitely cram the panicked streets tomorrow as even more people used any means they could find to escape from London.

The beggar knocked twice, once, and three times on a rickety side door, then stood close to a dusty window, allowing himself to be seen. Inside, a curtain was pulled away. A lantern was raised, illuminating the beggar's features. The curtain was repositioned.

Someone freed a bolt and opened the door, providing only enough room for the beggar to slip through without revealing anything that was in the stable. Even if someone had managed to glimpse the interior, only the side of a stall would have been visible, certainly not the two vehicles that stood in a row before the locked double doors of the main entrance. A dark cloth concealed each vehicle.

After securing the door, the beggar (no longer limping) followed the man holding the lantern and joined two other men, who were seated on barrels.

"No need for me to ask if your mission was successful," the man with the lantern told the beggar. "The frenzy out there is proof. After what'll happen at the prison tonight, the panic will worsen."

"Yes, the prison. Anthony always enjoys a challenge," the beggar agreed. "But I wish I were there to do it in his place."

"You had your own mission tonight," the second man emphasized. "A more important one."

"That depends on your viewpoint about what's important." The beggar walked toward the cloaked vehicles. "You made arrangements for the horses?"

"Yes. They'll be ready whenever we need them."

Raising a cloak, the beggar peered at one of the vehicles.

It was a hea.r.s.e. The gloom emphasized its black exterior. Through a window along the hea.r.s.e's side, an open coffin was visible.

"Very nice."

"The other hea.r.s.e is in even better condition," the third man said. "No one questioned us when we drove them here after we stole them."

"Yes," the beggar agreed. "Hea.r.s.es can go almost anywhere and not be challenged."

WITH A Sc.r.a.pE OF METAL, the jailer locked De Quincey's cell. Becker studied the intense way Emily looked for a final time through the door's peephole toward her father. Then he and Ryan accompanied her along the corridor, escorted by the jailer and the governor, whose girth nearly filled the corridor and whose slow movements required him to come last.

They entered the hub from which the five corridors radiated. With another sc.r.a.pe of metal, the jailer locked that door also. Through the bars in that door, Becker saw a rat scurry along the corridor.

"Miss De Quincey, we need to get you settled for the night," Ryan said. "There's a rooming house across the street. Relatives stay there when they visit prisoners. The rooms aren't to the standard of the house where you've been living, but they are adequate."

"The killer has been following Father and me. For all I know, he is watching the entrance to the prison from a room in that very house. I do not feel safe with that arrangement. I feel perfectly safe here, however."

"A woman has never stayed here as a visitor," the governor objected. "We aren't equipped to accommodate-"

Emily scanned the rooms that were situated between the radiating corridors. "I see a cot in this office."

"Yes, the guards take naps there when they have a rest period," the jailer explained. "However-"

"If it's good enough for a guard, it is good enough for me."

"But we have no appropriate sanitary facilities for a lady," the governor protested.

"Are you referring to a privy?"

Becker was amused that the governor's face turned red with embarra.s.sment, just as he himself had blushed when first hearing Emily speak so frankly.

"Well, miss, I, uh-"

"The alternative is that I might have my throat slit in the rooming house across the street. With that as an option, I believe that the privy here is suitable."

"But a guard would need to be a.s.signed to you," the jailer objected, "and the prison is understaffed."

"You won't need to use a guard," Becker offered. "I'll stay with Miss De Quincey."

"Highly, highly irregular."

"But preferable to what the newspapers will say, and what Lord Palmerston will say, if I'm murdered because of negligence," Emily noted.

"This gives me a headache," Ryan said. "Deal with it, Becker. I need to get back to the investigation."

He opened a door and stepped onto the fog-obscured path that led to the prison's exit.

In that distraction, before the governor and the jailer had the chance to say another word, Emily entered the office and sat on the cot. She gave the sense that she had taken possession of it.

"Very well. I have important matters to attend to," the governor said. "We shall see how you enjoy a night in a prison."

"And I must supervise the distribution of the evening meal," the jailer said. "We shall see how you enjoy being alone here."

"She won't be alone," Becker reminded them.

As the governor and the jailer departed through the door that Ryan had used, closing it more loudly than they needed to, Becker followed Emily into the office.

The room was small and cold, illuminated by a solitary gas lamp hanging from the ceiling. Other than the cot, the only furniture was a battered desk and chair. Truncheons and restraints hung on the walls.

On the cot, Emily's back was rigid. She pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders.

"The governor was right," Becker said.

Emily didn't look at him.

"This isn't a proper place for you," Becker continued.

"Wherever Father is, I belong."

"Loyalty to a parent is admirable."

"And?"

"And?"

Now Emily did look at him. "I get the impression that you intend to add a qualification, such as 'But loyalty can be taken too far.' "

"No. Not at all. Loyalty to a parent is admirable." Becker sat behind the desk.

"That's it?"

"That's it."

Emily considered him. "You have nothing further to say on the subject?"

"Not a word."

"You surprise me, Constable Becker."

The outside door suddenly opened. The jailer entered from the cold, bringing three other guards who pushed carts upon which metal bowls were arranged.

"Still here, I see," the jailer said. "Here's your evening meal. I trust you'll find it to your liking."

He set two bowls on the table. Seeming amused by something, the jailer left the room and unlocked a door in one of the corridors so that the guards could distribute the food.

The bowls had several dents from having been roughly handled for a long time. When Becker looked into them, he understood why the jailer had seemed amused.

Each bowl contained a meager potato. An inch of soapy-looking broth surrounded it. Flecks of what might have been meat floated in the broth.

"I need to determine if Father can tolerate the food," Emily said.

She stood and came over to the table, where she a.s.sessed the contents of the bowls.

"This is what the prisoners normally receive," Becker apologized.

"But this is perfect!"

"It is?"

"Father's stomach can't tolerate much more than this. Even so, I need to taste it to be certain it's bland enough." Emily looked on either side of the bowl. "The jailer forgot to leave utensils."

"Actually," Becker said, "he didn't forget. For security reasons, the prisoners aren't given spoons or forks and certainly not knives."

"They eat with their hands?"

"They raise the bowl to their lips and pour the food into their mouths."

Emily nodded and picked up one of the bowls.

"What are you doing?"

"There's no other way."

"Wait. I have something that might help. Please turn your head away."

"But-"

"Please," Becker repeated. "I need to do something that might offend you."