Doctor Crane sighed again. “It seems your friend has a very distinctive tattoo on his right forearm. The orderly saw it as the man put on his coat. A picture of a mermaid on a rock, beneath a single word. ‘Nimrod’.”
Graves continued with his notes, scratching the word “Nimrod” in bold letters upon the paper.
“It cannot be possible,” Treacher complained, his hands on his hips. “A dead man cannot simply get up and walk away.” He puffed out his cheeks in exasperation. With Kane disappeared, Fogg dead and now Hardacre himself on the loose, the time he’d spent in their den gathering evidence that may have hanged each of them was slowly coming to nought.
Crane pushed his spectacles further up his nose as he spoke. “I would not discount it so readily, Inspector Treacher.”
Treacher looked up, his eyebrows raised in expectation.
“There are compounds and substances,” the doctor continued, “which, if ingested in particular amounts, may produce the appearance of death for a while, but preserve the subject in perfect health.”
Sergeant Graves chewed on his pencil. “So he could, to all intents and purposes, be mistaken for dead?”
Doctor Crane sniffed. “By the layman, yes.”
“Where could one find such a drug?” asked Graves, pencil poised once more.
“That is a question for you, sergeant,” Doctor Crane concluded, heading for the door. It was plain that he at least thought the meeting over. “Though it would be easy enough, given the right friends in the right places.”
As Doctor Crane left the room, Graves turned to Inspector Treacher. An expression of resignation had clouded his broad face. Despite everything the doctor had told them, it was obvious that they were both none the wiser.
St John’s Wood seemed a different place in the storm. Gone were the calm, orderly streets that Inspector Bowman had seen the day before. Now, the roads were awash with rainwater. The drains, ineffective against the deluge, had quickly clogged with leaves and detritus. Twigs and even whole branches had been wrenched from the elm trees that had seemed so sedate only a few hours previously. Now they swayed perilously in the wind, providing precious little shelter to passers by beneath. The lack of sunlight gave a sickly pallor to the air, the pressing clouds seeming to deprive the smart townhouses of their roofs. It was difficult, thought Albert Hobbs as he looked up, to see where the houses ended and the clouds began.
Hobbs crossed the road to the Henderson residence, oblivious to the puddles around him. His feet were already soaked to the skin and his clothes so wet they clung to him. He felt their weight bear down on his shoulders as he raised an arm to ring the bell. The rain stung his face as he waited. Fat drops slapped against the doorstep. Blowing water from the end of his nose, Hobbs removed the hat from his head to wring it out. As he wiped the hair from his forehead the door opened and there stood Pollard, imperious as ever.
“Yes?” he asked, not bothering to hide a look of disgust.
Hobbs leaned into the old footman, his broad face graced with a threatening snarl. “I want to see Henderson.”
Pollard raised an eyebrow. “Doctor Henderson is a busy man,” he responded with a look down his long nose. “And so am I.”
Hobbs prevented Pollard from shutting the door in his face with a well-placed foot. He had half a mind to throttle the old bird there and then. Looking up and down the street, he saw there would certainly be no witnesses. “Tell him my name is Hobbs,” he rasped. “That should get his attention.”
“Oh?” Despite himself, Pollard felt himself in thrall to the repulsive man on the doorstep.
“Tell him that Kane is dead,” Hobbs continued. “Died in the night in the greatest pain.”
The drawing room at number Fifty Five, Acacia Road gave out onto the street. Through the net-curtained windows, Doctor Joshua Henderson heard every word of the altercation on his doorstep. Sitting in his chair by the window where he had spent a good hour leafing through the paper on his lap, Henderson leaned a little further forward and to the right in order that he might have a cleaner view. He could see Hobbs gripping the door now as he delivered his message. Pollard, thought the doctor with a sly smile, was earning his keep today.
“Well, I am very sorry for you, of course,” continued Pollard from the hall.
“And tell him one of the girls has been squawking, but she squawks no more. I’ve seen to it.”
Pollard was aware of the threatening tone in the vagrant’s voice. “Very well,” he conceded with a sigh. “I will pass on your message. Now, if you will kindly remove your foot from the door, I shall wish you a good day.”
At this, Doctor Henderson noticed Hobbs shift his weight on his feet and lean away from the door to the window at which he sat. For a moment, he was sure that Hobbs could see him perfectly well through the heavy net curtains.
“Tell him,” Hobbs continued pointedly, “that Hardacre is free and likely wants to settle a score. Seen him with me own eyes, I have.”
As Pollard finally closed the door on this most unwelcome of callers, Henderson picked up a cup of tea from a small table at his side and took a sip. So Kane was dead. That was all to the good. Henderson knew he wouldn’t last long. The wound had turned septic and there was little he could have done. As it was, he’d simply given the man sugar pills and a bandage, certain he would be dead by the morning. He cared nothing for the girl that Hobbs had mentioned. She was not important. But Hardacre was different. Replacing his cup back on its saucer with a controlled precision, Doctor Henderson rose from his chair and headed for the door.
XIX
Revelations
Inspector Bowman stood at the window in his office, straining to see through the rain to the streets below. A fierce wind was whipping across the Thames, blowing spray on to the few passers by who were fool enough to brave the morning. Sergeant Graves had come straight to Scotland Yard after his meeting with Doctor Crane, eager to deliver his latest news. He sat, knocking the rain from his hat, in the large, wing-backed leather chair before Bowman’s desk.
“Disappeared?” growled Bowman in exasperation as Graves finished his report. “He can’t just have disappeared. Do they not have any security at Charing Cross?”
Graves shook his head. “They’ve evidently not considered it a priority, sir.”
“So we have no idea where Hardacre may be. Nor in what condition.”
“Doctor Crane was of the opinion that he may well have affected a complete recovery.”
“Really?” Bowman raised a quizzical eyebrow. “So, death is now considered a temporary condition?”
“Hardacre might have had access to certain drugs which may give the appearance of death.”
Bowman gnawed his bottom lip in frustration as he thought. “There are fewer people abroad in this weather, so he’ll be conspicuous unless he goes to ground. I will have ‘H’ Division comb the streets around the hospital and beyond. He’s Treacher’s quarry. I would not do him the injustice of denying him his prey.”
“If we could stop every man and ask to see his forearm, then our job would be all the easier,” offered Graves, breezily. Usually one to enjoy being gainfully employed in the pursuit of a criminal, he was happy enough on a day such as this to remain at the office and let others do the fieldwork.
Bowman turned to look at Graves, perplexed. “Why would you do such a thing?”
Graves leafed through his notepad, licking his fingers to turn the pages until he found the relevant information. “Hardacre had a very distinctive tattoo upon his right forearm. A picture of a mermaid on a rock beneath the word ‘Nimrod’.”
Bowman took a step closer to his companion, his fingers twitching as if straining for something just out of reach. “Nimrod? You’re certain it said Nimrod?”
“According to the orderly who saw him walking out.” Graves noticed Bowman’s brow crease with thought. “Is there anything of import about it?”
“Only that that is the second time in as many days I have heard menti
on of it.” Acknowledging Graves’ blank look, Bowman continued. “The Nimrod is a schooner. Doctor Henderson told me he had spent some time on board as ship’s surgeon, though what he has to do with Hardacre is anyone’s guess.” Weighing up his options, Bowman decided on a course of action. “Sergeant Graves,” he began, “I want you to go to the shipping office at Somerset House. Find out all you can about the Nimrod, particularly with regard to crew and passenger manifests. This has to be more than mere coincidence.”
Graves sighed. So he would have to brave the rain again, after all. As he rose to leave, a thought seemed to occur to him. He took the previous day’s Evening Standard from the folds of his coat. “You might want a look at this, sir. Jack Watkins has been a busy man.” Graves unfolded the front page. As Bowman read the headline, his features bunched into an expression of consternation.
“Ignatius Hicks will be the death of us all,” he grumbled. “I take it he was the source of this information?”
“I’m guessing so,” nodded Graves, throwing the paper to Bowman’s desk. “I gather he spent some time with Watkins after we met at Chelsea Embankment. Said he was ‘keen to develop a relationship with our finest evening paper’.”
Bowman was pacing now. “And I should imagine he was handsomely rewarded for it, too. Watkins is not above procuring a story via his chequebook. If that turns out to be the case, Hicks will be disciplined. I’ve been working hard to build up the public’s trust in the Force.” Bowman’s voice grew thick with rage. “Hicks has undone all that with one fell swoop.” In a fury, Bowman pounced to his desk, sweeping the paper into the air with a fluid movement of his arm and throwing it against the window. Suddenly aware of his actions, he stood for a while, feeling Graves’ gaze upon his back. He felt a muscle twitch involuntarily at his eye. “I’m sorry, Sergeant Graves,” he said, not daring to turn. “The past two days have been rather trying.”
“For us all, sir,” Graves concurred, slowly. “In fact sir, if Watkins himself had been in this room, it would have been more than his blessed newspaper I would have thrown to the window.”
Bowman turned to see Graves’ eyes sparkling. His blond curls and flushed face gave him something of a cherubic appearance, quite at odds with the sentiments he expressed.
“Indeed.” Grateful for Graves’ expert defusing of the situation, Bowman made his way to his chair and sat, thoughtfully. “Then perhaps it might be best if I went to see him this afternoon.”
Before Graves had a chance to respond, there was a hurried knock at the door. At Bowman’s command, it swung open to admit Harris, the landlord of The Silver Cross, his head and shoulders sopping wet from the short walk to Scotland Yard. He reminded Graves of a wet dog as he shook the rain from his hair, but his grim expression soon brought the young sergeant up short.
“Inspector Bowman,” Harris began, steeling himself for the news he had to deliver.
“What is it, Harris?” Bowman responded, rising from his chair.
“Begging your pardon sir, but it’s Annie.”
Graves tensed as he turned to Bowman. “The girl we spoke to in The Silver Cross last night,” he said by way of explanation.
Bowman nodded. “What of her, Harris?”
Harris tried hard to steady his breath. “She’s dead, sir. Found strangled not quarter of a mile from The Silver Cross. A bobby found her in the alley between Whitehall and the Embankment.”
As Harris stood, dripping water to the floor, Bowman turned again to face the window and the rain outside. This was turning into a very grim business, indeed.
By noon, the rain was torrential. It hammered against the windows of Bowman’s brougham cab, an excusable expense he had reasoned, given the conditions outside. Still, the rain gained access where the windows were not sealed as robustly as perhaps they might have been. The inspector wiped away the odd drop as it splashed against his face, such was the force of the torrent outside. Great cedars lined the road, standing like sentinels at the entrance to Highgate Cemetery. As Bowman glanced out the window he could see them, massive as they were, bending in the wind. The rain lashed against their branches, weighing them down with its force such that the trees themselves seemed to reach at the ground in an effort to remain anchored there.
As his cab pulled up against the sturdy iron gates that stood at the cemetery’s entrance, Bowman saw a rather handsome private carriage standing in a far corner of the drive. Although it was parked beneath a canopy of branches, the rain still thundered against its roof. Curiously, noted Bowman, the driver was still sat in his seat, seemingly impervious to the deluge. Pulling his collar closer around his neck and tugging the brim of his hat over his eyes, Bowman jumped from his cab and walked briskly through the rain to the waiting carriage. Looking in through the window, he saw nothing but his own reflection staring back, wet and bedraggled already despite having only been in the rain for a matter of seconds.
“Hello, there!” Bowman called against the hissing of the rain. The door remained firmly shut. Feeling drops of water trickle down his neck, Bowman rapped on the door with his knuckles and awaited an answer with growing impatience.
Nothing.
Bowman turned to the driver perched high on his seat, the horse’s reins resting in his lap. He wore a large, black overcoat with shiny buttons done up to his chin. A great scarf was wound around his face and neck and tucked into his collar and a top hat was jammed on his head. With no hint of any flesh visible save a beak-like nose protruding from his scarf, the man looked like nothing more than a bundle of clothes piled on the driver’s seat.
“Hello, there!” Bowman repeated, but still the driver didn’t move. “I say!” he began again, shaking the rain from his upturned face as he called. The only answer came from one of the horses tethered to the carriage beside him. Plainly unhappy at being asked to work in such conditions, the mare cast a mournful look at the inspector and gave a whinny of disapproval. Turning away, Bowman’s attention was caught by a figure standing beyond the gates. It was a woman, dressed in black like the lady he’d seen at the Empire Rooms. She stood, sheltering beneath a great umbrella, inscrutable in an ankle-length coat and wide-brimmed hat. Just as Bowman was about to call out, the woman turned and made her way further into the cemetery, picking her way carefully between the long grass and weeds that encroached upon the path. Reasoning that he should follow, Bowman wrapped his coat tighter about him and stepped gingerly across the drive to the great iron gates by which one may enter the Kingdom of the Dead.
Highgate Cemetery had been open for just half a century, but already it had the appearance of an ancient site. Although certain areas were tended to, great tracts had been left wild such that Nature had, in all its manifestations, begun to slowly take back what had been tamed. Gravestones and tombs not twenty years old were entwined with ivy, great mausoleums were adorned with lichen coats and the paths grew narrower with every step. Had Bowman been here at another time of year, he would no doubt have marvelled at the view from the top of Highgate Hill across London. He may well have stood in silence to hear the birdsong, or muse at the profusion of wild flowers that grew among the graves. As it was, the wonder of the place was quite lost on him. He walked stealthily, his head down against the rain, looking up now and again to try and catch a sight of his mysterious quarry. Reaching a fork in the path, Bowman looked about him. Immediately before him, a great stone angel knelt in perpetual prayer. At its feet, an open book of carved granite proclaimed the names of those who were buried beneath. A fresh bouquet of flowers denoted a recent visit. Around him, ornate crucifixes studded the ground and rose like saplings from the ankle-high grass. His coat all the heavier from the rain, Bowman stood a while to catch his breath. He raised his eyes further up the hill towards a section of the cemetery dug into the surrounding hillside. A promenade of granite had been pressed into the escarpment, a series of imposing entrances giving access to the vaults beyond. It was here he saw her. Sitting in a pagoda for shelter, the woman in black was bolt upright
, facing him, gazing impassively at the view at his back. Her umbrella folded neatly at her side, she rested a gloved hand on its handle as if she were awaiting an audience. Bowman approached cautiously, noticing the gentle rise and fall of the woman’s shoulders as she recovered her breath from the chase. The hem of her dress was visible beneath her coat as she sat, and both were wet to her knees. Her boots, dainty and no doubt expensive, thought Bowman, were caked with mud. As his eyes rose past her prim waist and shoulders, he found himself confronted by a handsome but care-worn face. Standing outside the pagoda looking in, Inspector Bowman felt rather like an observer to some private play.
“For pity’s sake, Inspector Bowman, come out of the rain.” The woman’s voice was clear and direct and served to bring Bowman’s attention back to the matter in hand. Stepping into the pagoda, he shook the rain from his hat and smoothed his moustache with a gloved hand.
“You have me at a disadvantage,” he said.
The mysterious woman held him in her gaze, a look of faint amusement passing over her features. “Yes, I am sure I do,” she said, simply.
Bowman studied her carefully. Her dark brown hair, streaked with an iron grey, was scraped back over her head beneath her hat. She was perhaps fifty years old, but her eyes looked older. Where once they had obviously been a startling blue, they were now fading to a watery grey. The skin on her face was stretched tightly over her prominent cheekbones, but still there were lines about the eyes and mouth. Her head was held high on an elegant neck.
“However, inspector,” she continued, “I have seen you twice before.”
Bowman’s eyebrows knitted together, the dark crease between them becoming all the more prominent in thought. “Twice?” he asked.
The woman nodded before she spoke, giving her the air of one humouring a rather slow child. “Once, of course, during that dreadful business at the Empire Rooms last evening,” Bowman winced at the memory, “but firstly in the morning through the bow window to my bedroom.”
The Head in the Ice Page 17