“What on Earth are you talking about?” I said. I was fairly sure he wanted to be asked.
“A dissolution feather isn’t the sort of thing a man carries around as a casual trinket. It must be important to the murderer somehow. Vitally important. When he realized that he’d lost it, I don’t think he’d be able to keep himself from coming back to look for it. But we know Constable Rance found the body while it was still warm. And the feather is still here. Therefore, we know the murderer must have discovered the law already in possession of No. 3. And it seems certainly worth inquiring whether the worthy constables might have discovered him.”
Lestrade made a noise that was probably intended to convey that he himself had been about to say the exact same thing.
“In the meantime, however,” Crow said, “it might be a very good idea to find Mr. Joseph Stangerson. For whether he knows it or not, I fear he is in a great deal of trouble.”
7
The Constable’s Story
On our way back to Baker Street, Crow bought every newspaper he could find, and he spent the afternoon collating accounts of the murder in George Yard, ferreting out every fact possible and making a neat tabulation of the number of newspapers in which any particular item of information appeared. The process was instructive to witness: the range of facts presented by the newspapers was quite astonishing, as was the degree to which they cribbed from each other.
“There’s only so much news to go around,” Crow said. “They all circulate and recirculate it endlessly. You have to read quite carefully to glean any new facts.”
I looked at the stacks of newspapers once again flooding our sitting room and could only agree.
“I find it abominable,” he added after a moment, “that they can’t discover this poor woman’s name.”
Names, of course, are of the most desperate importance to angels; they don’t properly exist without them. For a moment, I imagined the dead woman in Whitechapel as one of the Nameless, and then shuddered at how accurate an image that was for the wretched people of that district. Certainly, most of them had no one who cared whether they had a name or not.
At four, Crow stood up in a great rustling of feathers and paper and said, “Time to roust Constable Rance. Do you come with me?”
It was asked diffidently, and I noticed the way his verb choice spared him from actually asking me to come and spared me from having to refuse such a request—if I had been capable of doing so, which was doubtful. “Of course I’m coming,” I said.
* * *
The Camberwell constables’ barracks were new, redbrick, and rather pathetically dreary. Constable Rance was still in his shirt sleeves, a stout young man with brown hair, already thinning but neatly combed. He was earnestly eager to help in our inquiries.
He was able to tell us a great deal about his beat, including Lauriston Gardens. It was a dismal part of east London, prone to typhoid; the last resident of No. 3 had in fact died of typhoid and the house was empty because the landlord had yet to do anything about the drains.
“When I saw the light in the windows,” Constable Rance said, “to tell you gentlemen the truth, I thought that maybe it was him that died o’ the typhoid inspecting the drains what killed him.”
That wasn’t an unreasonable fear, and I said so.
The constable reddened. “Thank you, sir. Sergeant says I was being a nervous Nellie. But I did go in, and I found him.”
“Inspector Lestrade said the corpse was still warm?”
“Yessir. But he was stiff all over, like you woulda had to break his bones to lay him out straight.”
“Yes,” Crow said, “I thought you’d tried. It’s a kind impulse, but really you shouldn’t.”
“I never—”
“You walked around the room several times,” Crow said. “And you knelt down by the body. Then you walked through and tried the kitchen door. Then—”
Constable Rance staggered up and back from the table. “Where was you hid to see all that? You ain’t the Angel of Lauriston Gardens, because there ain’t one and never has been, and how can you—”
“Peace!” Crow said, laughing. “I am one of the hounds, not the wolf. I am not the murderer, and I am not Fallen. Inspector Lestrade will vouch for that.”
“Beg your pardon, sir,” the constable said, now brick-red. “I didn’t mean nothing by it.”
“Of course not,” Crow said and flashed his dazzling smile. “As Dr. Doyle said, it’s not an unreasonable fear. Come sit down and tell me about the man.”
“The man?” the constable said, obediently resuming his chair.
“When you went back out in the street. There must have been one.”
“You mean that drunk fellow?” He grinned. “I’ve seen some drunk men in my time, but never anyone so cryin’ drunk as that cove. He was a big man, too, so I was just glad he was too drunk to fight.”
“What sort of a man was he?”
Rance was puzzled but willing. “A big bloke in a big shabby coat and a muffler. Me and Murcher had to prop him up an’ he was singing the whole time. Oh! He was a Colonial, he was singing one of those Rebellion songs like they do.”
“That’s very interesting,” Crow said. “What became of him?”
“We would’ve taken him in for causing a public nuisance, but we didn’t have a man to spare. So me and Murcher, we walked him down to the Brixton Road so he’d be out of our way, and I imagine he got himself home all right.”
“I imagine he did,” Crow said dryly.
Rance, as a truly sterling example of the London bobby, missed the inflection, and while he was clearly ready to offer any help he could, it was equally clear that he had nothing more to provide. In the hansom, Crow was bitter. “He could have solved the case!” he said. “Right there! All he had to do was his job!”
“He had no reason to expect the murderer to come back,” I said, more out of a vague sense of obligation than any belief that Constable Rance was not an idiot.
“If he’d arrested him!” Crow said. “We’d have him right now!”
“Yes, I suppose this will teach us all not to prioritize murder before drunkenness,” said I.
It startled him—I felt his wings twitch—and then he burst out in his slightly hysterical but infectious laugh. “Well,” he said, “and he did give us some useful information. The murderer seems to be an American—which makes some sense, since Mr. Drebber is an American.”
“One thing puzzles me,” I said. “On the Sophy Anderson, I distinctly remember Drebber saying he was from Salt Lake City, but his cards say Cleveland. I admit that my knowledge of the Colonies is not perfect, but I didn’t think those two cities had anything to do with each other.”
“No,” Crow said. “Cleveland is in the Western Reserve, while Salt Lake City is the capital of the Mormon Territory of Deseret. Those are very different points of origin.” He pondered a moment, then added, “When we do find Mr. Joseph Stangerson, there are a number of very interesting questions I wish to ask him.”
8
The Mousetrap
“Will you keep a secret, Doyle?” said Crow as I turned from hanging my hat on our hat stand. He was giving me a look compounded of hope and mischief, and I noted his wording again: not “can you” but “will you.”
“As long as it harms no one,” I said, for I had drawn that line for myself a long time ago.
“Oh, well, that’s simple then,” Crow said. “No harm to anyone, I promise.”
“Then, yes, I will keep your secret.”
“Splendid! They should be arriving—yes, there’s the bell.”
I tried to be open-minded and prepared for anything, but I was still surprised when eight of the Nameless filed into our sitting room.
“Behold!” said Crow, who was honorably trying not to laugh at my expression. “The Baker Street Irregulars!”
“I beg your pardon?” I said, and he did laugh, though more with delight than anything else.
“They go everywhere
, Doyle! They see everything! And no one thinks twice about them. They are of far more use in an investigation than a police constable.”
“But I thought…”
“That they are mindless as well as Nameless?”
“No, of course not. How could they be? But I had always thought that the Nameless had no self-volition?”
“Well, they haven’t,” Crow agreed. “But if I ask them to find something out for me, that’s perfectly within bounds and there’s no reason they can’t.”
“Is it that they have no volition or that they are forbidden to use it?”
“Um,” said Crow, and there was a susurrus of feathers from the line of Nameless. “A bit of both, I suppose? They have no individual identity or will. But they’re quite capable of making decisions in pursuit of a goal once they’ve been given one—which can come out rather close to the same thing on occasion.” He added, “Just because they don’t act on what they hear doesn’t mean they don’t hear it.”
“What are you going to have them listen for?”
“We need to find the cabdriver who brought Mr. Drebber to No. 3 Lauriston Gardens,” he said to both me and the Nameless. He described Drebber and the horse with one new shoe and said, “I think the setting was chosen as a matter of opportunity, so that I don’t think the cab ride can have been very long. Start around the Brixton Road, and only widen your search as you have to.”
The Nameless nodded their understanding and Crow dismissed them.
“They like having missions,” he said. “It gives them a sense of identity, which of course is what they all long for.”
“Do you remember being Nameless?” I asked and then realized what a dreadfully tactless question it was.
But Crow didn’t seem to mind. “Yes, of course, but it’s quite hard to describe. There’s no sense of self to anchor what I remember.Thus the memories are very hard to”—he gestured widely with both hands—“hold on to. I have heard people discussing their dreams, and I think that’s the best analogy. I remember the sensation of being Nameless more than anything else—the rest is disjointed and quite nonlinear. And I can’t make narratives out of any of it.”
“That sounds unpleasant,” I said.
Crow shrugged, shoulders and wings flexing together. “There was no self to find it so. Just the longing to have a name.” And then he shook himself, like a dog coming out of the water, or a person emerging from a dream, and said briskly, “It seems to me that our point of leverage is the dissolution feather. It is clearly something the murderer values, since he made the reckless move of attempting to return to the scene of the murder. Ergo, it should be possible to induce him to do something reckless again.”
“Your hypothesis seems sound as far as it goes,” I said. “But how do you intend to set this trap? You can’t just place an advertisement in the papers: ‘FOUND, one dissolution feather.’”
“I can’t?” He sounded disappointed.
“Dissolution feathers are too rare and too valuable. Your mousetrap will attract far too many mice.”
“Oh dear,” he said. “Do you have an alternative in mind?”
I almost laughed at him, but then I had a thought. “You could put an advertisement in the paper. ‘FOUND, an item believed to be of great value to its owner. Inquiries to 221 Baker Street.’ That way, anyone who comes has to tell us what the thing is.”
“That’s rather clever, Doyle,” he said. “Do you think it will work?”
“I think it might. As you say, he clearly wants to retrieve it very badly. And desperate men do stupid things.” I’d seen that often enough in Afghanistan.
“It’s worth a try,” he said. “We won’t tell Lestrade. He’d have a thousand fits.”
“How did you persuade him to let you keep the feather anyway?” I said.
The corners of Crow’s mouth curved up. “I implied strongly that it was sacred and had already been profaned by being found on a murdered body. I think he thinks I’m going to pray over it all night.”
“Is it sacred?”
“Eh.” He pulled it out of his pocket and considered it, tilting it to watch the firelight gleam off the delicate lines. “It’s a bit like a cremation urn. This was an angel, once. I certainly don’t like the idea of it being mucked about by a bunch of ham-handed constables. But it’s mostly, I don’t know, symbolic.”
“And you know it’s real,” I said, because his identification of it had been immediate and certain.
“I can feel…” He paused for a long moment, clearly trying to think of the right word. “Harmonies? Does that sound at all right?”
“Don’t ask me,” I said. “The precious little I know about angels mostly involves how to avoid the Fallen on the battlefield.”
“Well, let’s call it harmony, anyway. It’s the last trace of the angel, of their song, held in this lump of transmuted gold.”
“Their song?”
“We sing to each other,” Crow said simply. “Always.”
“As birds do?” I said doubtfully, trying to imagine the dignified angels of St. Bartholomew’s and St. Paul’s squawking at each other like parrots.
“Birds aren’t actually an awfully good analogy. You’d do better to think of us as bees.”
“Bees?” said I, taken aback.
“Well, we’ve too many limbs to be mammals,” he said reasonably. “And our social structure is much better represented by a hive than by a warren—or even by a rookery. And bees do sing, in a way.”
“I suppose so,” I said feebly and spent the rest of the evening trying very hard not to think of Crow as a bee.
* * *
I went to sleep that night fully expecting to wake up in my closet again, but although I had terrible dreams about the Fallen, I woke up still human and still in my bed, which I supposed amounted to a victory. Of sorts.
I’d overexerted myself the day before, running around after Crow like a fool, and I paid for it with aches and chills and bleak ennui. I got out of bed only because I knew either Crow or Mrs. Climpson or poor overworked Jennie would come tapping at my door to find out if I was all right.
I wasn’t all right, but I was alive, and that would have to do.
Crow was in the sitting room, surrounded by the inevitable drift of newspapers. He was bent over one intently, his hair already rumpled—for he had an inveterate habit of raking his fingers through it when perplexed—and falling into his eyes. “I say, Doyle,” he said, not looking up as I folded myself gingerly into my chair at the table, “they still don’t know the name of this poor woman murdered in George Yard.”
“She has no one to notice that she’s gone,” I said bleakly.
He raised his head sharply, and I got the full force of his stare. “You’re not all right.”
I shook my head. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
He looked profoundly unconvinced. “What you mean is that there’s nothing to be done.”
I winced, rattling my teacup against the saucer. “I suppose that’s true. I warned you that my health was bad.”
“I wasn’t complaining,” he said. “If there is something that can be done, will you tell me?”
Concern or curiosity? It was hard to say; I knew he liked me, but I had no sense of how deep that liking might run, or indeed how deep it could run. I had learned that angels, while they mimicked human manners and emotions perfectly, did not always feel them, and Crow had suggested, just last night, that it was an error to imagine that they felt as humans did.
Bees, he had said, and it occurred to me to wonder, if the angels of London were the bees of a hive, who was their queen?
“Doyle?” said Crow.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “My mind was wandering. Yes, if there’s anything you can do, I will tell you.”
“Good,” he said, still watching me. “But there isn’t?”
“No,” I said and decided my hands were steady enough to pour tea. Mrs. Climpson had learned just to leave the teapot (in its garish knitte
d cosy) on our dining table; I habitually went through an entire pot in a morning, needing both its warmth and its invigoration.
I was not at all sure tea was going to be enough today.
Crow returned to his newspapers after a moment and regaled me with tidbits while I drank my first cup of tea—necessary before I rang the bell. Crow was in an odd way an infinitely undemanding, and thus restful, companion. If I wanted to say My leg hurts like a bonfire, Crow would not judge me as a whiner or a malingerer; he had no expectations about maintaining a decent reticence, nor any experience of the stoicism I had been raised to expect of myself.
I wasn’t, of course, going to say any such thing, but there was some comfort in knowing that I could, and Crow would not think less of me.
When I rang the bell, Jennie appeared like a magic trick.
“She was waiting on the landing,” Crow said mildly, and Jennie blushed a hard scarlet that clashed with her hair.
“I’m late,” I said. “I know, Jennie, it’s all right.”
“Please, sir,” she said. “Cook’s got a lovely pair of kippers, if you’d be wanting—”
“No,” I said and added, “thank you,” because I’d been much more fervent than I’d intended. “Just toast, please. But bring the good marmalade.” I smiled at her and got the faintest responsive dimple.
“Yessir,” she said and scurried away.
Crow said, “I’ve put an advertisement in the East End papers. He’s more likely to read them, I think, than The Times.”
“You’re sure he reads?” I said.
“He found Drebber somehow.”
“Then you think—”
“I don’t think it’s like this woman in George Yard, no. Something that needed to kill found someone who wouldn’t be missed. But Drebber had a traveling companion. He had visiting cards—even if we think they weren’t accurate, due to that telltale difference between Cleveland and Salt Lake City. No one searching for a victim of convenience would choose him. Ergo, he was killed because someone knew him and wanted him dead very badly. And since Drebber is merely a visitor to London, that means his killer stalked him. Like a lion stalking a gazelle.”
The Angel of the Crows Page 5